Earlier in the summer, I had the incredible opportunity to backpack through nine different European nations with my two older sisters, getting closer to the history of the continent and each other along the way.
At the end of our three-week journey we spent several days in the incredible city of Istanbul. Formerly known as Constantinople, the continent spanning city changed hands many times throughout history, serving as the capital city for the Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman empires and was officially renamed Istanbul in 1930. Needless to say, the town’s got a fair amount of history to it, from ancient underground cisterns to soaring minarets, there was a lot to see and experience so we wasted no time in hitting the pavement.
One of the first sites we visited was a cistern built in the 6th century under the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justinian. The underground reservoir is almost 10,000 square meters and has 336 columns supporting it. If it looks familiar, you might have seen Sean Connery running around it in 1963's From Russia With Love.
Fun facts about this medusa head: it's over four feet tall, it has a twin elsewhere in the cistern, and no one knows where they came from. The columns of the structure were gathered a bit randomly and this results in a few mysteries when it comes to the history of such oddities. Spooky stuff, man.
This strip of restaurants and bars was underneath one of Istanbul's many bridges, offering tons of options when it comes to seafood.
Due to Istanbul's long history, there is a ton of incredible architecture above ground as well. Palaces and mosques dominate the landscape, the latter's minarets were visible from just about anywhere.
Below is the Sultanahmet Mosque, more commonly known as the Blue Mosque, who's six minarets were contraversial at the time of construction for being equal in number to the minarets of Mecca. The then sultan later payed for the construction of a seventh tower in the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammed.
As far as shopping is concerned, if what you're looking for isn't in the Gand Bazar, it's in the Spice Bazar, and if it's not in the Spice Bazar, it probably doesn't exist.
Istanbul also offers a wonderful arrangement of flowers in the summer, providing yet more stunning colors in an already incredibly vibrant city.
The Turkish Rose, if you couldn't tell, is very popular.
Dogs and cats roam the streets and are surprisingly well treated. As a result they're all pretty friendly, just like this guy hanging out in a palace courtyard off limits to pedestrians. 
The one downside to our stay in this incredible place was that it wasn't nearly long enough. More so than any of the stops on our voyage, more than Milan or Munich or Barcelona or Athens, Istanbul is the city I really can't wait to return to.
One last important note if you're planning to visit Turkey is the presence of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) on the nation's Syrian border. Though the U.S. has recently begun airstrikes from Turkish cities in an attempt to dismantle the terrorist group, it’s unclear how influential ISIS might become in Turkey's future. On July 20 a suicide attack authorities have attributed to ISIS killed 32 people in Suruc, Turkey, which rests about 10 miles from the Syrian border. Istanbul is, thankfully, close to 800 miles from ISIS activity in Turkey, and remains largely unaffected by these attacks.
