'A good traveller has no fixed plans.' Tao Te Chiang
For cheap, fast and filling you can't beat a fish sandwich down by Istanbul's Galata Bridge. It's a hugely popular snack, often eaten with a glass of pickle juice to wash it all down. I recommend the sandwich, but won't vouch for the pickle juice! Eating a fish sandwich off the boat by Istanbul's Galata [...]
The lokanta is the place to eat, if you are an ordinary citizen of Istanbul, looking for something affordable, delicious, and nourishing to fill your tummy and keep you going. Rob and I popped into our neighbourhood lokanta one evening, and were not disappointed. And boy, do those cooks and servers work hard! Lokanta, Istanbul
Pressing pomegranates, Istanbul
My post last week tried to show something of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul - a glimpse, I hope, of more than just appearances - what does this look like? - but photographs that, perhaps, maybe, if I am lucky, encourage us to ask, what does this mean, what does it represent, what does it [...]
I love this image of a young man out on the town, in Istanbul, early one evening. With his cool red sneakers, nonchalant cigarette, airy wave of greeting to someone who is out of the frame, he seems an expression of the city, an embodiment of hip young city-dwellers everywhere. Of course, a city as [...]
Turkish ice-cream is thick and sweet, almost toffee-like. This vendor in Istanbul was a master performer and magician. Wielding his ice-cream paddle like a sword, he made ice-creams appear, disappear, whizz around your head with dazzling speed. And he would taunt you - push the ice-cream right into your face, and as you reached for [...]
Baklava, Turkish Delight, tea, coffee, pastries - Istanbul's Hakki Zade 1864 is a place - a palace - of earthly delights. And I love this image, which I took from outside, of a man ordering from the counter, with the reflections of the street in the window above him. It seems a good image to [...]
I couldn't resist sharing this one shot, taken from our table outside on the pavement at a great seafood restaurant, Seabreeze on Bree Street close to the Bo-Kaap area in Cape Town: a sash window propped up with an empty bottle of good Cape bubbly, the couple in conversation inside, and 'SH' telling us all [...]
Brussels in colour, as I wrote in my post last week, says something about the city's vibrancy, diversity, liveliness, charm. Brussels in Black-and-White offers an alternative view, a different kind of feeling, depending of course on the subject matter, composition and that kind of thing. Here is a different view of the Grand Place from [...]
We drove up the steep hill into Olvera, one of the 'white towns' or pueblos blancos of Andalucia; parked, climbed higher, to the monumental bulk of the Iglesia de la Encarnacion from where we could look across to the Moorish Keep on a rocky outcrop opposite; looked out over the roofs into the streets below [...]
