A closer look
Istanbul claims the unique title of being the only major metropolis in the world to straddle two different continents, neatly divided between Europe and Asia by the Bosphorus Strait, meaning you can literally wake up, eat a severely overpriced pastry in Europe, and take a twenty-minute commuter ferry to go completely ruin your diet with street meat in Asia, a geographical quirk the local tourism board milks for everything it is worth by plastering the two-continent gimmick on every single piece of souvenir garbage sold in the Grand Bazaar, when in reality, crossing between the continents usually just means getting hopelessly stuck in absolutely biblical bridge traffic while aggressive taxi drivers chain-smoke and yell at each other, causing the profound historical magic of bridging two ancient worlds to quickly fade when you realize you are just another exhausted commuter trying to avoid getting scammed by a carpet salesman on either side of the water
