Turkey. A Travel Log.
Remnants of a magnificent city past is what makes Istanbul. The Byzantine empire defined area for a little over a millennia and a half before the Ottomans took it. Don't get me wrong Istanbul is amazing in its own right as manifested by the Turks, but just imagine what Constantinople was like at its peak. Stories of a city embossed in gold, aristocrats and scholars strolling about the streets engaging in intellectual dialogue, supernatural events occurring on the regular. You don't see that anymore (for obvious reasons) but what saddens me is the ruins left behind by the Eastern Roman [Christian] empire were no longer sacred nor properly preserved by the current government. There were instances where some remains of a fortress or palace were being used as a garbage dump, graffiti etched forever onto a millennia old structure. Despite this, I was still able to appreciate all that was left behind by the Romans (read Byzantines). Day 1. We went as a family. Yulia, Sofia and I. Af