TOP IMAGES With enough snow to cruise the sidewalks, you might as well strap in on your way to see the tourist sights of Istanbul. BOTTOM Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar should be on any avid traveler’s bucket list. It’s a place where time seems to stand still. Regarded as one of the first shopping malls in the world, more than 4,000 shops are spread out over 61 covered streets. Over a quarter-million people pass through daily, making it the world’s most-visited tourist attraction. t was the last day of 2015, and the minarets of Ottoman-era mosques stood sentinel over an Istanbul downtown core plastered with snow. A foot deep in places, it was the heavi-est snowfall the ancient coastal city had seen in decades. Tur-key’s a country more famous for its rich culture, white-sand beaches and sugary baklava than its urban snowboarding potential. It’s a country caught somewhere between the Occi-dent and the Orient, Christianity and Islam, and ancient and contemporary culture. It was there that I welcomed the New Year in Taksim Square, the heart of modern Istanbul, with a group of guys from India who had never seen snow, slipping and sliding around the seventh largest city in the world. A video project called Loose Change had brought me to Istanbul. Led by Niels Schack and Sparrow Knox, longtime friends from France and England respectively, this was the first stop on a shoestring tour of lesser-traveled snowboard destinations within striking distance of Western Europe. They arrived on New Year’s Day, still awake from the night’s festivities back home, alongside filmer Alex Weir. It was the start of an extended trip through the country, one in which we would travel nearly 1,500 miles, during which a terrorist attack in Istanbul killed 10 German tourists, though we always felt safe and welcome. Despite an international travel warning and the threat of unstable borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran, the people of Turkey brought us in with open arms. 060 THE SNOWBOARDER’S JOURNAL
The Snowboarder's Journal frequency 14.1: Page 60
