Highlights

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  Some Enchanted Evenings

  In the 1950s, a palely beautiful summerhouse on the Bosphorus made tbe perfect playground for the cream of café society. Now its luminous, airy rooms, emptied of fuss and colour, reveal their natural beauty. Patricia Daunt uncovers the colourful past of Ratip Efendi’s yali.

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  Seven gardens for seven heavens

  A Turkish-inspired garden on the Cambridge Fens. Two Turkish passions meet in John Drake’s beautiful garden: a love of symmetry and an abundance of wild flowers. Here the garden historian acknowledges his debt to the Turkish ideal of paradise on earth.
  SPECIAL OFFER: order five beautiful garden-themed issues, including this one, for only £80. List price £122



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  The Grand Parade

  When Ottoman sultans wanted to outshine European monarchs by the end of the sixteenth century they were choosing elaborate entertainments as their ammunition rather than solemn victory processions. In the second article in her series on East-West rivalry, Christine Thomson focuses on the Istanbul festivities of 1582, a spectacular street party lasting almost two months.



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  A Hard Day’s Sailing

  Some take the hard dusty route to the Mediterranean’s ancient sites. Christian Tyler approached them the hedonist’s way: cruising on a gulet along some of the most breathtaking coastline in the world.



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  Whistling Down the Wind

  Two isolated villages share an Ancient way of communicating across mountainous ravines. Andriëtte Stathi-Schoorel captures the last echoes in Greece and Turkey In Kuşköy (Bird Village), in the Eastern Black Sea Mountains, the ancient art of whistling is still taught to schoolchildren. It is in these very mountains, south of Trabzon, that Xenophon came upon a similar use of whistling nearly 2500 years ago. Only five communities in the world are known to share the ability to whistle their speech.

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  A Vine Romance

  For thousands of years man has enjoyed the succelence of the grape. But the fruit is not its only gift.
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  Relative Values

  One hundred and ninety years after the young Charlton Whittall first opened for business in Izmir, the members of this great dynasty are dispersed throughout the world. In June 359 descendants gathered at a reunion in London to celebrate the one thing that still inspires them all: their memories of life in Turkey.

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  Carpet Clues

  An Egyptian rubbish heap reveals its buried treasure, mysterious birds deceive the eye, and Chinese clouds have silver linings. Philippa Scott continues her guide to the world of rug collecting