Hi this is Chris and I am traveling this week so there is not a new episode of

Amateur Traveler that will be a new episode at next week but I do present one of

the favorite episodes we've done in the last couple years an episode on the city of

Istanbul which has often been the answer I've given

people when they asked about one of my favorite places to travel in the world.

Take a listen.

I got my bags packed on a roll heading out there and I'm ready to go looking real good

in my passport photo.

Amateur Traveler, episode 579.

Today the amateur traveler talks about mosques and palaces,

ancient walls, rooftop bars, and a building that was the largest building in the world

for a thousand years as we go to Istanbul, Turkey. Welcome to the amateur traveler.

I'm your host Chris Christensen,

and let's talk about Istanbul.

I'd like to welcome to the show Christopher Mitchell from traveling

Mitch.com who has come to talk to us about Istanbul in Turkey.

Christopher welcome to show.

Thanks very much. Happy to be on here. I love the show for a long time so

honored to be here. Well and we're going to talk about some of the concerns of going to

Istanbul in a bit but first why should somebody go to Istanbul? For me it's just hard to whittle it down to a few reasons because it's truly one of the world's

great cities and having lived there for three years I can say I left and I still had things on my

to-do list and that's pretty special when you think about a city like that, right?

...