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ISTANBUL (Part I): A BRIDGE BETWEEN TWO CONTINENTS

City Istanbul has had several names and has occupied for many centuries an important place in history (capital of Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium and Ottoman Empire), today but its role has been in second place except in two respects: the commercial and cultural. For now we will focus on the second, as it will European Capital Culture in 2010 .

Image losviajeros.com

Peninsula Located agency Anatolia (Asia) and Thrace (Europe), separated by the Bosphorus Strait linking the Black Sea and the Mediterranean through the Marmara Sea , now extends to both sides and turn left heading in the European area by the river estuary Haliç (the famous Golden Horn). As a result of this special situation became very early in the crossroads of trade between Asia and Europe.

The booming city of Byzantium, which existed from s. VII BC, began with the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great , who in 330 AD reformed and expanded the city occupied the peninsula formed by the Haliç and Marmara and gave his own name: Constantinople, giving it important infrastructure and buildings, grand palaces, embellishing it at the expense of other cities, by moving columns, statues, obelisks ....

However, since those early days was characterized by its cultural importance, not only because of its monumentality, as it was founded the first university (330), which despite being reformed later by the Ottoman Sultans, has continued to this day. Received a number of Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 and has been fusion center of European cultures, Ottoman and Islamic for centuries.

also had a great influence on the religious aspect, as it became one of the main centers of Christianity almost from its inception and especially since become the official religion of the Byzantine Empire, where the Patriarch of Constantinople (Byzantium) overshadowed the Pope of Rome himself, of which attest to a number of churches (most notably Santa Sofia ). This duality eventually leading to the schism of 1054, and giving rise to the Church Orthodox Christian , majority in Eastern Europe.

After the Turkish conquest of the city in 1453 Christianity, but did not disappear by full at the renowned Istanbul, was replaced by Islam, the churches converted into mosques and the Patriarch by the Sultan. However, this fact sought a cultural to the town, the sultans strove to improve the city raising large religious complex, which also were social (available for kitchens, bathrooms and schools), and poetry, philosophy and Arab influence mathematics flourished in the city, which acquired the unmistakable image of domes and minarets by the sea.

However, after several centuries of splendor, in the nineteenth century began a period of decline, marked by weak Sultans government, riots and nationalist ambitions of European powers culminated in the demise of the Ottoman Empire in 1919 after World War 1. This process involved in the cultural field a strong Western influence in the city, which is reflected in some neighborhoods, such as Taksim, and streets in the Istiklal .

The emergence of Turkey as a new state came from the hand of an army officer, Mustfá Kemal Ataturk , who tried to make it a modern state, imposing secularism and Turkish nationalist cultural policy, being its most significant measures:

• The abandonment of Islam as official religion.
• The replacement of the Arabic alphabet by the Latin.
• Industrialization and modernization of agriculture. Progressive
• democratization, but under the supervision of a strong army, the main guarantor of Ataturk's reforms

veterans Statement (image lanacion.com)

Today Istanbul has become a cultural kaleidoscope, where it melts the Mediterranean character, especially visible in the food and the life of the streets, with the classical Roman and Byzantine history, the Islamic religion and great Ottoman mosques seasoned by chants of the call to prayer, with the explosion tourists from around the world to enjoy this fantastic cocktails and beautiful sunsets.

photos Juanjo Martínez

Groping On Buses Or Trains

A good final visit Madrid

To complete this exciting course we will visit the city of Madrid, making a journey that allows us to implement in practice much of what we have been studying this year and at the same time enjoy its architecture, its gardens, its history and why not its food.

Plaza de Oriente and the Teatro Real (obtained flickr)

To view the itinerary you can visit the Vicente article with several photos and if you are interested in more details, also the paper that opened this blog, about planning in Madrid.

But if you look a still insufficient and want to return to Madrid this summer to visit not only in passing, but know it thoroughly, I recommend you will download the audio guides for ipod/mp4 made by the city of Madrid on page of esMADRID (El Madrid de los Austrias and the art walk).

Epera we spend it well and you like it at least as much as I like to walk through the center of our city, Madrid.

Keshyog Hair Oil Indian

A new revolution in Iran? The new Soviet cinema

The situation in Iran is getting complicated day by day thanks to riots and demonstrations taking place in Teheran and other cities, despite police attempts to end with them and efforts to control information of the regime of Ayatollahs. This situation makes threatens to plunge the country into an international crisis that ends in a bloodbath, and by extension increase the already high international tension with the U.S. Iran's nuclear program.

Mousavi surrounded by his followers ( Obtained from El País 16/06/2009 )

The protests erupted just know the "suspects" election results presidential Friday 12 June, where he declared victory of the populist Ahmadinejad in the first round (with over 62% of the vote) and as a result supporters of reformist candidate Mousavi have taken to the streets starring in your own pictures 30 years ago when it emerged the Islamic Revolution in 1979 that toppled Shah Reza Pahlevi and allowed the rise to power ultra-conservative clerics, led by Ayatollah Khomeini , true builder targeting Islamist regime that still exists Shiite Iran.

Clashes in Tehran ( Obtained from El País 16/06/2009 )

The government of President Ahmadinejad tries to contain the monent demonstrations without resort to the militia of the Revolutionary Guards and the army, relying basically in the police action and trying to control the flow information to the Iranians that they can access (control television and most newspapers). So for example, have restricted access to the Internet, SMS and the signals from the satellite television channels also have expelled most foreign news correspondents, and so on.

Video on the expulsion of correspondents from Iran TVE

However, Mousavi supporters are using a resource at their disposal, as mobile and SMS are controlled: social networks are especially well-known twitter , to call demonstrations and organize, avoiding repression and government control. It seems that this movement of popular protest is not going to settle for a recount of votes, but the Iranian urban youth calls for a new more open society and a brighter future.

An example of these objectives, we consult on the interview that the country has made a Marjane Satrapi, the author of the famous comic and film Persepolis , where from the perspective of a child are the changes that produced the Islamic Revolution in Iran the 80, especially for women, fierce criticism of religious intolerance and cultural isolation . Just what you're fighting against young people who manifest these days in Iran.