Sofia Costa

Istanbul is too big to see and too good to rush, so I picked a few neighborhoods and stayed in them. Karaköy at dawn was the Bosphorus going silver, ferries sounding, a man feeding cats with great formality. Mornings started with a Turkish breakfast in Beyoğlu that took two hours and a table too small for it.

I went into the Egyptian Bazaar as it opened, when the spice piles are perfect and nobody has touched them yet. At dusk I crossed the Galata Bridge between the fishermen's lines, the mosques of the old city going dark against the sky. Nights were meyhane tables, meze, raki and music, and once a hamam, all steam and warm marble. Künefe in Sultanahmet was the last word on most days.