I’ve long appreciated cemeteries. As a teenager I spent a lot of time pondering over the lives of the many people buried in the Gore Hill Cemetery in St Leonards, Sydney, where I grew up. Even aged 14 I thought it ironic that rooms in the adjacent hospital overlooked the graves. Gore Hill was established…
Now that you’ve booked your trip to Istanbul in winter, you’ll want to learn where to have a drink in Istanbul to enjoy some festive cheer, alcoholic of course, accompanied by some tasty Turkish delights. Luckily for us, Turkish wine expert Andrea Lemieux aka The Quirky Cork took some time out of her busy schedule…
I’m a winter baby and I love when the temperature drops so I can roam Istanbul to my heart’s content without getting too hot. It’s really lovely to visit Istanbul in winter, as Julia Bayne, business owner at Istanbul Place Apartments – offering historic apartments for short stays in Galata – knows well. You remember…
When I studied history at high school we learned about World War I from an Antipodean perspective. Heroic Australian Johnnies fought local Mehmets at Gallipoli, the Germans were eventually defeated and everyone went back home again. What we weren’t told was what happened next in Istanbul and Turkey. Even before the war came to an…
Every week I try to have two what I call outing days in Istanbul. One is with my husband Kim and usually involves a museum or art gallery visit and lunch at one of our regular favourites. The aim is to enjoy each other’s company, learn something new, and of course, eat. For the second…
Ever since I first came to Turkey in 1990 after hitchhiking through the UK and travelling in Europe, I’ve read hundreds of books about Turkey in many different genres. Although I graduated in sociology and prefer cultural and social studies about Turkey to history books, basically I read anything that takes my interest. Having said…
Famous as Turkey’s cultural capital, Istanbul has long been acknowledged as a great city. It’s packed with exquisite mosques, sumptuous palaces and a rich heritage extensively covered in hundreds of guidebooks, travel websites and blogs, yet few of them mention the fact women played a role in making it great. Like Pierre Loti Cafe, which…
For this year’s birthday post I thought I’d tell you about my long horror hate relationship with kelle paça, sheep head soup for the uninitiated. My intense dislike of offal started long before I moved to Turkey, although as a four year old I apparently loved the tongue soup my nana made, at least according…
Every year Muslims around the world take part in Ramadan when for thirty days they allow no food or drink to pass their lips in daylight hours. True believers are also required to abstain from sex. Doing without is a personal statement of faith and shows solidarity with those who have very little all the…
I’m neither a mad dog nor an Englishman and I never go out in the midday sun in summer, but this year the temperature in Istanbul from June through to August was set on high no matter the time of day. Nonetheless I still went out exploring, but tried to plan outings involving air-conditioned transport…