Istanbul

Istanbul is the only city on Earth that keeps a foot on two continents, and it has spent twenty-six centuries refusing to choose. Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul — capital of two empires and doorway of a third — it drapes its domes and towers over seven hills while the Bosphorus runs through the middle like a silver corridor, ferries stitching Europe to Asia every few minutes for the price of a tea.

The traveller gives the historic peninsula its due — Hagia Sophia, fifteen centuries of engineering audacity wearing four minarets; the Blue Mosque across the square; the cisterns below and the Grand Bazaar's four thousand doors beyond — then earns the city's real degree: a ferry to Kadıköy with simit in hand and gulls negotiating overhead, lunch on the Asian shore, the Galata tower at dusk, and a fish sandwich where the Golden Horn meets the strait.

The Guide's practical counsel: load an Istanbulkart and let trams and ferries do the work — traffic is the city's only true tyrant —; dress for mosque visits with shoulders and knees covered, scarves provided at the doors; bargain in the bazaar as theater, not war; book Hagia Sophia's hours ahead in high season; and surrender at least one evening to a meyhane's long table of meze, where the city practices its oldest art: making strangers stay late.