Monday, March 7, 2022

Travels

My top travel destinations that I've never been to are Israel and Istanbul and the Aegean Coast of Turkey.  Below is a satellite photo of Istanbul, its sprawling suburbs, and the Bosphorus.



Istanbul is on the European (left shore) where the Bosphorus discharges into the Sea of Marmara.  The old city is on the promontory, just south of the inlet.  It is also the location of the ancient city of Byzantium, founded in the 8th century BC and later refounded as Constantinople by the Emperor Constantine in 330AD.  Conquered by the Ottomans in 1453 and later officially renamed as Istanbul in 1930; as They Might Be Giants reminds us, it's now Istanbul (Not Constantinople).

Ideally, we'd start with a visit to Istanbul to see both the modern city and the archaeological remnants of its long history and then travel down the coast of Asia Minor to the excavations at Troy and on to the ruins of the cities of the Classical World such as Ephesus.   Ephesus is also the setting for Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors and we are great fans of the Flying Karamazov Brothers interpretation of The Bard's work, which we watched on several occasions with our children.

Ephesus

Ephesus | ancient city, Turkey | Britannica

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