Istanbul, the capital city of Turkey has many unique features. It is called as seven hills city as it is situated on seven hills. It is the only metropolis that spreads into two continents. It is the only one city in the world that has been served as the capital for several nations. Istanbul was the capital of Roman Empire once. Later it served as the capital of Byzantine Empire, Latin Empire and also of Ottoman Empire.
However I was not aware of all these features before visiting the city recently. I have heard about Istanbul and as I did not have any special interests I had never tried to collect any information about the city. Recently, when our company planned to expand the area of operation to many new countries, Turkey appeared as a potential place. They asked me to go there for an initial survey. My work was to meet some industrialists and traders and discuss about our products and plans for marketing. I had to make suggestions depending on their feedback.
As, it was the first step in the direction of expansions and as the company was not sure about the results, it did not want to spend more. Hence they advised me to get cheap tickets to Istanbul. After a long search and bargain I got the cheapest airline ticket. After checking into a hotel, I tried to contact the persons in my list. As I did not have any special interests in this city, I did not want to spend more time there. I have decided to finish the work as early as possible and to go back at the earliest.
On the second day of my arrival at Istanbul, I went for a business discussion with a dealer. He was a decent Youngman with a positive thinking. After finishing our discussion we sat for a cup of tea. During casual chatting, he mentioned about Hamam or the Turkish bath. It started during the Ottoman period as a culture of leisure and now it has been accepted by the world as a way of treatment. There are many Hamams in Istanbul where you can have Turkish bath.
This created a sort of interest in me and I have taken details about Turkish bath and hamams in the city from him. Cemberlitas Hamam is the oldest hamam which has been built in 1584. Apart from Hamam, there are many historical places in the city. Once I came to know more about the city, I really repented for being ignorant. It has many modern structures also which depicts the development of the city. Now it is one of the major cities in the world and almost all major airlines are operating flights to Istanbul.
When the city became more popular, many airline companies introduced cheap flights to Istanbul. This caused sudden increase in the number of visitors. By the time I gathered more information about the city and planned to visit more places here, I received a call from my company to stop the work and report at the head quarters. Catching one of the last minutes flights, I returned after an incomplete trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment