A Turkish delight

For 1500 years, everyone has wanted to go to Istanbul. All the Popes and Russian tsars, all the great powers of the West and East, have dreamed of walking her fabled walls. Istanbul is ‘the city of the world’s desire’, the former Byzantium and Constantinople, the only city that has been the capital of three separate empires, the only one to straddle two continents, a gleaming city of domes and towers and green hills and sunlight on blue sea.

You are not a tsar, but you need at least three days in Istanbul, because it is made of layers upon layers that only open up slowly, and the best of it takes time.