Midday Express

Last night I watched the film "Midnight Express". Based on the experiences of a backpacker jailed for 5 years for drug smuggling, definitely better seen after a trip to Turkey than before it! My landfall for a week's stay in Istanbul in early September is not without faults; the hotel is overbooked so I have to stay next door for the first night, but better than Sultanahmet Jail where the film's protagonist was banged up. (Incidentally, said jail has been converted to a luxury hotel; maybe it would have been worth staying there).

Breakfast offers a tantalising view not only of the meal but of this part of the city. It's a jumble of streets and passages, a challenge for walking (and even more so for cyclists as the travel writer Rebecca Lowe reports). But what an amazing history! Istanbul achieved greatness when as Constantinople, it was split from the Roman Empire in the 4th century A,D. Aya Sofia, seen from the balcony of an upmarket tea shop, began life as a church, then became a mosque, was later turned into a museum and is now a mosque again.

One of the pleasures of Istanbul is doing a "mosque crawl" because Turkish mosques are open to the public except at prayer times. There's a 15-minute queue to get into to the Blue Mosque but most of the others are almost deserted and reveal how talented the Ottoman architects were. This interior belongs to the 18th century Nuruosmaniye, an example of Turkish baroque and more flowery than the classic works of 2 centuries earlier. On another excursion I enter the Mehmet Pasa Mosque, where the curator tells me off for removing my shoes to walk across the courtyard. Why? Because my feet have got dirty again, so I have to brush off the dust before entering the mosque proper. Sorry about that!

The sightseeing buses are abundant; I manage without them but can't avoid a look at the Pudding Shop. This has been a famous meeting point over the years especially for backpackers, which I was on my previous visit in the 1970s. Istanbul was, and is, a crossroads of the world. Turkish tea (which I have at another tea house) having been stewed for ages, is potent and best enjoyed without milk but with plenty of sugar. It's a good way to round off the day, as is the late afternoon view from my hotel roof terrace.Read more