The Bosphorus from the walkway near Arnavutköy

The Aya Sofya. Originally a church, this building became a mosque with the Ottoman conquest in 1453. Today it is a museum.

Kadıköy, on the Asian side of the city

Fruit merchant in Kadıköy

The Hippodrome, Sultanahmet

Istiklal Caddesi at night

The Blue Mosque, Sultanahmet

Cafe Society, Istiklal Caddesi

The Bosphorus, and the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge in the background, named after the conqueror of Istanbul

This was taken in Abant.

Cross-country skiing in Abant

It often snows in Istanbul as well. This is an Ottoman cemetary not far from my apartment in Maçka. If you click on the photo, you'll notice that several of the tombstones have stone headgear atop them.

Is it Nişantaşı or is it Teşvikiye? Identity can be fleeting in the borderlands

Teşvikiye Mosque from the back

This was taken close to Anadolu Kavağı, just off the Bosphorus on the Asian side

Foça

Foça

More Foça--there isn't a decent beach in the town of Foça, but some people swim off the pier.

I took a minibus about 10 minutes to this beach, the name of which I can't remember. The water was very clean but the beach was pretty pebbly.

Another shot from the beach

This is back in Foça, from my hotel balcony

Sunset from Foça

After Foça, I went to a small town named Çandarlı. I was curious to find out if there was any local connection to the famous Çandarlı family of Ottoman times, but no one in Çandarlı had ever heard of them. Anyway, this was the view from my balcony.

This is a Genovese fortress but is not open for tourism

I spent a couple of days in Çandarlı, then went to Ayvalık. This was taken on Cunda Island, which is now connected to Ayvalık by bridge.

Cunda is home to Harvard University's Ottoman Summer School, which I attended in the Summer of 2000.

This is a shot of the back of the island. We used to swim at a little beach down there during the Summer of 2000

Cunda used to be home to a large Greek Orthodox community. During the Muslim-Greek population exchange of 1923, most Muslims in Greece had to move to Turkey and most Greek Orthodox in Turkey had to move to Greece.

The Greek population on Cunda was thus replaced by Muslims from Crete. These Muslims spoke Greek, rather than Turkish, and to this day you can hear Greek being spoken on Cunda Island.

Sweaty after having climbed to the top of the island. That's Ayvalık in the background on the other side of the water.

Another shot from the top of the island

A small street on Cunda

This is the hotel where we all stayed back in 2000. Ibrahim Bey, the manager, was a really nice guy.

In mid-August my daughter Eszter came down from Hungary to travel with me for a couple of weeks. After spending a few days in Istanbul, we flew down to Izmir and went to Efes. This is the famous library at Efes.

Eszter at Efes (Ephesus).

Another Efes shot

After Efes, we went down to Bodrum. This was what the beach in front of our hotel turned into in the evening.

A shot of the beach during the daytime.

Another shot from the beach

Our hotel was in a strip of about a million places--I can't remember the name of the area we were in.

I think the water in Turkey is far superior to most of the lake and seawater in and around the US. There aren't a lot of big sandy beaches, though, and the ones you encounter tend to be very crowded. Often, there is no beach at all.

Taken by my daughter. The water is very clear and very turquoise. We were far deeper than I had thought when we anchored because the water is so crystal clear.

Eszter preparing to go snorkeling

Sunset on the way back to shore

We returned to Istanbul for a few days before Eszter flew back home. Here is the Aya Sofya again.

This was taken in the underground cistern--a very cool and refreshing place to go on a hot day

And, of course, Tünel. There is the "nostaljik tramway" again. It goes up and down Istiklal Caddesi between Tünel and Taksim Square.

Istiklal Caddesi: the coolest street in the world

This shot is from the interior of the Aya Sofya, the exterior of which is shown in a photo above.

Eszter in the Grand Bazaar

The interior of the Blue Mosque in Sultanahmet

When I lived in Istanbul in the 90s, I liked going into Sultanahmet just to check out the tourist sights, then have beer and kofte.

The end of the vacation!

In February of 2008, I went to Istanbul for a job interview. I stayed at the Hotel Fuat Paşa in Büyükdere, near Sarıyer (on the European side of the Bosphorus). The view from my room was pretty good.

On the morning of my job talk I was quite nervous and woke up early. This shot was taken at dawn from my hotel room.

Here's another shot from a few minutes later.

While in Istanbul, I decided to visit my old neighborhood. It's between Beşiktaş and Teşvikiye, in a semt called Muradiye.

The world-famous Muradiye Camii.

This is my old building on Göknar sokak, where I lived from 1995 to 1999. My balcony was second from the top--there's some kind of blue tarp on it here.

Close to Nişantaşı there is a sort of "pan-Turkist" park in which Atatürk's bust is placed as the last in succession to a series of famous "Turkic" heroes, including Tamerlane.

Taksim Square and the Atatürk Cultural Center.

Statue of Atatürk in Taksim Square.

The nostaljik tramway in Taksim Square.

Coolest street in the world.

I stayed at the Fuat Paşa for three days, then moved to ARIT's hostel in Arnavutköy for the last couple of days of my stay before returning to New York. .