Istanbul

Istanbul is the only city on earth that sits on two continents, and it has been a capital of three empires — Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman — which explains a skyline where Hagia Sophia's sixth-century dome converses with the six minarets of the Blue Mosque across a square that has heard chariot races, coronations and calls to prayer. Byzantium became Constantinople became Istanbul; the Bosphorus, threading between them, remains the most beautiful commute in the world, ferries stitching Europe to Asia every few minutes.

The city's musical life matches its scale. On Taksim Square, the Atatürk Cultural Centre — the republic's modernist opera house, rebuilt and reopened in 2021 with a crimson sphere of an auditorium at its heart — restored the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet to a flagship home. The Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra, the country's leading private orchestra, plays its seasons across the city and keeps its own hall at İstinye; both institutions, with their venues, are documented in the concert record. Each June the Istanbul Music Festival scatters concerts through Byzantine cisterns and Ottoman courtyards, on the reasonable grounds that the city itself is the best stage set available.

Add the Grand Bazaar's four thousand shops, Topkapı's treasuries, meyhane evenings on the Asian shore — and the visitor understands the city's oldest truth: empires end, Istanbul continues.