Undoubtedly one of the world's great cities. I guess you'd like a little more detail than that right? OK, You know how sometimes you arrive somewhere for the first time and feel like you've already been there. That doesn't happen in Istanbul. There's a feeling of permanency to the place, like it has always been there and always will. Home to the Byzantine Empire, which lasted a thousand years or so, and then seat of the Ottoman sultans, an unbroken succession that managed to last for 500. Now, by one of history's accounting errors, it isn't the capital of the Republic of Turkey. Actually it's probably much more suited to its current role as unofficial centre of everything that happens in this country.

You could spend a day, a week or a month here and not run out of things to go and look at. Just doing the essentials (and that's a fairly controversial list to put together) is going to take three days of intense sight seeing. Do yourself a favour and read a book or two before you arrive. There are several great choices at various levels of depth but the more preparation you do the more it will all make sense.

Spreading well beyond the limits marked out by successive Emperors and Sultans, Istanbul is probably Europe's most populous city but, thankfully for the tourist, the most important sites are grouped together around the Golden Horn - the bit of water that separates Galata from Sultanahmet. You're going to want to base yourself somewhere fairly close to this area and Sultanahmet, Taksim and environs have accommodation pretty much all year round. We'll mention a couple of favourites later on in these pages.

The concentration of the important sites means that you can do most of your rubber necking on foot. This is probably just as well as Istanbul's ancient roads can't really cope with the demands placed on them by today's Stamboulis and everything seems to grind to a halt on numerous occasions.

The climate is never really, really, really horrible. Well, I guess that's not strictly true but the point is that there something to be seen here at any time of year and if tanning and splashing about are your priorities you wont like the place anyway. It's often wet here, sometimes it snows but on a good day (which can be at any time of the year) it is a drop dead gorgeous place to be and you will find everything much less frantic in the winter if you can deal with the mist and those chilly winds.

It would be futile to try and do a comprehensive guide all in one go so we'll start with some of the really, really excellent things that you should see before you die and work down to the other bits and pieces as time permits. The links tastefully arranged at top and bottom of this page will give you a little information about our favourite bits and pieces of the city. What are you waiting for? Phone your travel agent.