The bustling metropolis of Istanbul<\/strong> straddles the two continents of Europe<\/a> and Asia<\/a> and is separated by the mighty Bosphorus River. You will find numerous remains from the former Constantinople. The city possesses a unique blend of Western and Eastern history and culture. Stroll the traditional Turkish bazaars and visit impressive palaces and mosques. <\/p>\n Istanbul’s old city is located on the Sultanahmet<\/strong> peninsula. Here you can see the political and religious history mainly in the magnificent architecture. For example, Hagia Sophia was once a Christian cathedral and later a mosque. Visit the nearby Topkapi Palace, the most famous mosque in the world; the Blue Mosque and be seduced by Turkish scents and colors at the Grand Bazaar. Add to that the pleasant Mediterranean climate and culinary delights and you will understand the appeal of this cosmopolitan pearl in T\u00fcrkiye.<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Vibrant metropolis full of contrasts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":377302,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"country":[571],"highlight_category":[600],"continent_category":[217,264],"class_list":["post-377304","highlights","type-highlights","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","country-turkey","highlight_category-hoogtepunt-en","continent_category-asia","continent_category-europe"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/highlights\/377304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/highlights"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/highlights"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/highlights\/377304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=377304"},{"taxonomy":"highlight_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/highlight_category?post=377304"},{"taxonomy":"continent_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.untamedtravelling.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/continent_category?post=377304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Charismatic metropolis<\/h4>\n