ART IMITATES LIFE

A DAILY OCCURRENCE IN ISTANBUL

Istanbul is one of my favorite cities on earth.

I've spent well more than a month total in my visits.

I can give directions to visitors, if stopped an of dozens of neighborhoods.

But I also can, rather intentionally, get "lost" wandering the back streets of Fener, Balat, Zeyrek, Hocapasa or Beyoglu.

Author Orhan Pamuk and many of his characters love walking the backstreets of Beyoglu.

I was heading from Istiklal Caddessi downhill toward Cihangir.

I was not sure if I was on the right track to the antique district.

So I pulled out my smart phone and started looking at google maps and feeding in the name of a museum and shop in the general area I wanted to arrive at.

Confident that I was on the right path, I shut down the phone.

I pulled out a bottle of water and looked up at the street art.

Looks like a traveler of a different era was doing the exact thing I was.

THE JOYS OF WALKING THE BACK STREETS IN ISTANBUL

ABANDONED PUBLIC PHONE IN ANCIENT FENER

Elegant, but broken. Listing to the left, yet perfectly photogenic. This old, beaten Turk Tele Kom station looks like an objet d'art posed against an ancient wall on a winding back street not that far from the shores of the Golden Horn. Think about the joys of life when we get out of our cars and wander the back streets.