This is a very clean city, we find...

Just across the road from us, there are two communal bins:


These bins are emptied at least three times a day. And you'll find more bins just a few hundred metres down the road. No-one has to walk far to find one.

Our bins are just like large vats. On other streets, you get these massive subterranean containers:



In addition to the bin men, a sweeper turns up at regular intervals throughout the day, to keep the area tidy.

We also have multiple daily visits from the recycling folks, who can presumably sell what they manage to extract from the bins and squirrel away in their big wheely containers.

And then there are the "hurdaci" or "eskici" (whose trolleys appear at the top of the post). These are the equivalent of the rag-and-bone men who used to do the rounds when we were children, but who now seem to no longer exist in the British Isles.

I don't envy them their jobs, and I don't know what kind of a living these various people can make. But as a system for keeping the city spruce, it certainly works.

The other prosaic but necessary thing for which I rate Istanbul very highly is public toilets. Seriously, England, you have a lot to learn here... Toilets in Istanbul are plentiful; the vast majority cost the equivalent of GBP 0.05; and the ones I've used have all been in excellent condition. Kudos...

Covid continues to impact on our day-to-day lives. We mask up in shops, in taxis, and on ferries (and the ferries, with their breezy open decks, are the only public transport that we're using). We're passing on indoor sights, and we're only eating at places where you can sit outside. All of which means we're missing out on a lot of interesting things. Then again, we're really enjoying what we are doing, and hopefully, there'll be a next time...


I also ought to talk a bit about the dogs. I'm not a dog person. I don't like the creatures much, and I infinitely prefer Istanbul's cats. But there are street dogs here, too. I don't think they're quite as numerous as their feline counterparts. But they're definitely a thing. And what's interesting is that all the ones we have come across so far have been pretty docile. If they're doing barky stuff, it's to each other. Kuching dogs: I wish you'd take note.