This month, get the best of two continents as LaIsla travels to Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city. Long known as Constantinople, it served as the entrance to the Black Sea on the traditional juncture between Europe and Asia. Lying partly in Europe and partly in Asia, the city is the center for culture, industry and commercial.

Start your journey by passing through the Bosphorus Bridge that connects the Asian side of Istanbul to its European side. Through the bridge, one can see the far-reaching view of the Istanbul Strait, sometimes referred to as the Bosphorus. Visit the different mosques of the city, from the Sultan Ahmed Mosques, or also known as the Blue Mosque because of the blue tiles surrounding its interior walls, to the Yeni Mosque or the New Queen Mother Mosque, which dominates the ferry docks at the southern end of Istanbul’s Galata Bridge. Walk into the sea side village of Kanlica, one of the oldest districts in the city and taste its ever famous Kanlica Yoghurt.

Live your dream of being a pirate and eat in the Maiden Tower located in the middle of the Bosphorus. This open restaurant offers different Turkish delicacies you surely won’t forget. Be a prince or princess for a day in the Rumelian Castle, built way back in the second half of the 15th century, and now serves as a museum and open theater. And if a shopping venue is what you’re looking for, the Red Vintage Tram will bring you to Istanbul’s Istiklal Avenue, one of the busiest shopping venues in Europe.

As Asia’s Pearl of the East meets the historical empire of the West, Istanbul’s remarkable mosques, strikingly attractive castles and towers, authentic villages and towns and world-class modes of transportation will surely give you the best of everything. Learn and be astonished of one of the world’s great historic capital cities ̶ a place you will never forget.