The Companion Guide to Turkey

For thousands of years Turkey has been at the crossroads of history. All of the civilizations that have flourished here have left monuments to their greatness, ranging from the ruins of Homeric Troy to the theatres and temples of the Graeco-Roman world, from the churches of Byzantium to the mosques and palaces of the Ottoman Empire. This book begins in Istanbul - formerly Constantinople - for more than 1000 years the capital of the Byzantine Empire and for nearly 500 years after that the imperial city of the Ottoman Turks. From here the author explores the European and Asian provinces of Turkey, along the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, the Dardanelles, the Aegean, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, across the downs of Thrace and the endless steppes and majestic mountains of Anatolia, along the borderlands which separate Turkey from Russia and the Arab countries on the edge of the Mesopotamian desert.