The Golden Horn

I arrived at Istanbul’s outer fringes at about eleven o’clock this morning, negotiating gnashing dogs, sweating and hobbling. The soles of my boots, which walked me this whole way, are almost completely worn through, and my feet are now being brought into intimate contact with the road. 

Finding the water, walking the bridges over the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, made my arrival feel slightly more real. But still not entirely. The city feels like the centre of everything. The mosques are like vast and extraordinary scarabs crawling on the horizon. I’ll write more on this arrival later – I’m still waiting for my mind to catch up with my body. For now, I just want to thank everyone who has helped me on my way, from Patrick Leigh Fermor, who wrote the map, to the last old man who brought me a glass of tea in a Turkish village.

More soon.