Page "hobbies" Paragraph 407

Built upon seven hills, Istanbul, like Rome, is one of the most ancient cities in the world, filled with splendor and contrast.

It is an exotic place, so different from the ordinary that the casual tourist is likely to see at first only the contrast and the ugliness of narrow streets lined with haphazard houses.

At the moment, many of these are being pulled down.

Whole blocks are disappearing and more are scheduled to vanish to make room for wide boulevards that will show off its treasures to better advantage -- the great domes and graceful spires of its mosques, the panorama of the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn.

Even when they are finished, however, the contrast will remain, for Istanbul is the only city in the world that is built upon two continents.

For almost 3,000 years Europe and Asia have rubbed shoulders in its streets.