The Bosphorus Bridge is 30 years old
During the time of the Ottoman Empire, the residents of the Bosphorus consisted solely of fishermen, boatsmen and gardeners. Transportation costs between the villages of the Bosphorus, the manner in which the boats called pereme were boarded and the number of people that could be accommodated were set by regulation. In particular the peremes has to be long and wide. The rules prohibited that they function as sailboats, that men and women travel (...)full story

Pierre Loti is the pseudonym of French author Julien Viaud. On his first arrival in the Ottoman dominions as a naval officer (1876-1877), he fell in love with a young local girl called Aziyade. They met frequently in his house in Eyüp and he recorded his affair in a journal published under the title of Aziyade shortly after his departure from the country.
A Turcophile, Loti enjoyed going into Eyüp wearing the traditional fez and counting rosary beads like the natives. He frequently went to (...)full story

Istanbul’s Pera Palas Hotel, a favorite haunt of the rich and famous, had a very special place in the life of best-selling author Agatha Christie. She stayed in the hotel many times between 1926 and 1932, and one of her best-known stories, Orient Express, was written there. Warner Brothers took the unusual course of contacting the famous Hollywood medium and clairvoyant, Tamara Rand, to see if she could get in touch Christie’s spirit through a séance. Contact was made, it was claimed, with (...)full story