Hello everyone, as you listen to this episode, my Istanbul Kickstarter campaign has gone live.

You can check out the page and the introductory video I made, but I strongly recommend that

you listen to this episode if you'd like all the details.

And also, if you're just listening to the first minute of this but thinking, I really

don't care about this idea at all, you might still want to check out the rewards I'm offering

because there are bonus podcasts there. I think you might like them. You can skip ahead to

the rewards part, which comes at the end of this episode or go check them out on the Kickstarter page.

Okay, so I'm going to talk briefly about why I want to go, why now, and then what you will get out of it.

I'll go through all the rewards options and try to tempt you to support the project.

So, why do I want to go and why now? Obviously, I want to go to Istanbul because I'm so excited to see

the places that I've been reading about and talking about for six years now. And I think it will

deepen my understanding of Byzantium and provide new insights and content for the show.

And I'm also spurred on to go now because of the recent political uncertainty in Turkey.

You know, some of you have written to me to say that's a reason not to go.

I know tourism has receded significantly and it's possible that Istanbul could become a place

that you can't safely travel to. And I really hope that doesn't happen. And basically,

I don't want to live my life regretting the missed opportunity to go now. And of course,

over time, it's possible that some Byzantine sites or monuments will be removed or will just

collapse. So again, I want to go now. And one of the things that inspired me to start the

history of Byzantine podcast was visiting Rome and Pompeii back in 2010. I was listening to the

history of Rome religiously at the time. And I loved the whole experience, but I wished

when I was there that I had some kind of detailed guide to each site with me.

...