"Istanbul - city of contrasts" Istanbul by flyfreak

Istanbul is a city which at your first visit can even frighten a Middle European like me - it is so busy, millions of people moving around the city during day and night, the mixture of cultures and religions. The more I visited this city, the more I loved it. Orient meets Occident, the past meets the future, traditional meets modern, you find any kind of contrasts here ...
You see a street vendor pushing huge piles of bread and in the background you see a modern Mc Donald's building. At the traffic lights you might happen to wait next to a woman dressed with a short skirt and very feminine, and next to her a woman dressed traditionally in black. This city is moving so fast you will need several visits to slowly conquer it...

The Egyptian or Spices bazaar

Colourfull whereever you look - at the Spices bazaar

I know I am looking stupid here .....;-)

Being in Turkey you have to try a lot of things - one of them is smoking a waterpipe .. :-) Being a non-smoker all my life I had my difficulties with it ... as you can see in the picture ...

• In a nutshell:A song says more than 1000 words ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b9bjTUBk3A