Istanbul: Lust, Attraction and Attachment

Her ample body follows the sinuous curves of the Bosporus; her two seductively adorned bridges straddle the strait. She's rather promiscuous, seducing men and women alike, while opposing factions in rival families, Asia and Europe, buy, attempt, fail to control this willful and wayward woman.

Whether she is modestly covered, sometimes barely looking you in the eye; or exposing her countless delights, İstanbul rarely fails to entice her visitors. Her name was Constantinople when Byzantium controlled her. She kept it even after the Ottomans took over in 1453, until the Turkish Republic's father, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, reformed the Turkish language in the 1920s, adopting the Latin alphabet, and giving the beautiful city a new name. İstanbul is a shortened version of the Greek phrase ΕΙΣ ΤΗΝ ΠΟΛΙΝ (EIS TIN POLIN), meaning "to the city", since Constantinople was the biggest, wealthiest and most populated metropolis of the times. (Top: A bar with a view- old, squeaky apartments buildings often hide breath-taking rooftop sights. KA) MORE