In 1998 I was traveling from Dubai back to the U.S. I had to change flights in İstanbul. Since I had never met with the people handling our business in Turkey, I took the opportunity to pay a one day visit to my colleagues. The business part of the stopover was quickly dispatched and I found my hosts/friends to be absolutely delightful people. To make my short visit even more "productive" and special, my associates arranged for a family friend to take me on a tour of İstanbul -- at least as much as one could rush through in an afternoon.

While many of the myriad of sights in Turkey had to be held for a future visit, I was able to visit four of the more popular sights, Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Egyptian Obelisk, and Topkapi Palace. These pictures show just a little bit of the wonders that İstanbul has to offer. (All pictures were taken with a Nikon 6006 with a Sigma 28-80mm, f/3.5-5.6 lens and ISO 200 FujiColor film. Prints scanned on an Epson 4990 flatbed scanner.)

(PS: I could not resist borrowing the gallery title from the 1953 song by Jimmy Kennedy and Nate Simon. I hope neither you, nor Jimmy, nor Nate mind this small bit of plagiarism.)

Update: After numerous e-mails from pBase friends in Turkey, I changed the spelling of the subject city to İstanbul from Istanbul. I hope this placates those who wrote me with the correct spelling of their capitol city (for which I thank them) and atones for my earlier error. -- T. David, 17 February 2007