TRAVERSE 51
TRAVEL- TÜRKIYE
LEIGH WILKINS
A CLASH AND A CONNECTION
It felt like this day would never end, no matter where the road led it was a constant crawl of traffic, maniacal and dangerous. Yet a calm surrounded me, a bubble of contentment, as I took in the surrounds. This must surely be one of the worlds greatest cities.
It felt like this day would never end, no matter where the road led it was a constant crawl of traffic, maniacal and dangerous. Yet a calm surrounded me, a bubble of contentment, as I took in the surrounds. This must surely be one of the world’ s greatest cities.
The sixteenth largest city on earth, Istanbul was presenting a sensory overload, not in that way that seems to draw life from the observer, no, this was filled with an energy that was contagious, and this was at a macro level, as if I was riding from above, from a higher plane. The surrounds were incredible, nothing seemed out of place whilst not having a distinct form of heritage. From the road Istanbul felt like I had been transplanted into some form of art where the creator had thrown pieces at a table and where it landed is where it would stay, somehow it worked and in the most detailed way.
Istanbul is of course Türkiye’ s cultural centre, a place where history, economics, and religion have all played a part, it’ s not the capital but it is the centre, meaning it has a population like nothing else in Europe, although some would dispute that it is all entirely in Europe as Istanbul’ s great sprawl spans two continents.
I found myself in the old quarter, and a quick glimpse suggested it was much older than I had first realised. Archaeological remains, discovered just a few years ago, indicate that the first human settlement in what is now Istanbul was around eight thousand years ago, an organised community that brought with it
TRAVERSE 51