Urfa's old city is an invigorating array of tones and sounds. Dominated by an intriguing maze of narrow streets, the buildings all share the same sun-baked sandy hue, suggesting that they rose up from the earth on their own centuries ago. Landscape and cityscape blend into one here, and cars are outnumbered by ornately painted motorbikes equipped with sidecars, vehicles perfectly equipped to navigate roads too narrow for vans and sedans. Older men don poşu scarves of varying color combinations, and Arabic is spoken more frequently than Turkish. Believed by locals to be the birthplace of Abraham, Urfa is known as the “City of Prophets.” The municipality proudly advertises this fact.

We are sure that many parallel universes exist within the labyrinthine Grand Bazaar of Istanbul, one of the world’s biggest and oldest covered markets. The easiest one to access is a world of Prada knock-offs, Minion keychains and leather-bound menus presented with “Please, monsieur, fresh fish, Turkish kebab, hola!” This is the world constructed for foreign tourists, but step off the main streets and into the bazaar’s tiny arteries, and, as if stepping through a magic wardrobe, you’ll be transported into the local life of the bazaar.

When in season, fried hamsi (anchovies) and tekir (mullet) are among the tasty treats encountered on our Two Markets, Two Continents walk in Istanbul.

On the night of July 15, electricity consumption on the European side of Istanbul rose by a staggering 52 percent. People frantically clutched their smartphones, plugged in their chargers, and remained glued to their TV screens. Turks watched with terror as a military coup attempt played out like a twisted B action movie. Tanks ran over people and shot them in the street. An F-16 left a sonic boom in its wake sounding no different than an exploding bomb. Jets fired on the parliament building in Ankara.

Ramadan fasters in Istanbul may not love the endless daylight hours in summer nor the susuzluk (no water), but when the reward is a leisurely iftar under the trees on Kadinlar Pazar, the pedestrianized market known as Little Siirt (named after the southeastern Turkish city where many of the local shop and restaurant owners hail from), it must surely seem worth it. A February iftar would not be quite the same, at least not in Turkey. As we walked through the twilight to Siirt Şeref Büryan Kebap Salonu at the end of the square last Saturday, hundreds of fasters waited in front of cling-filmed plates of iceberg lettuce and ciǧ köfte for the Ramadan cannon to signal “breakfast” time.

The sound of bombs has become an all too frequent occurrence in Istanbul as of late, and residents of the city's Cihangir neighborhood were spooked as ever when an explosion occurred in a building overlooking the main square early on a recent Sunday morning. Blasts sound no less scary when they are the result of gas leaks. When the smoke cleared, 75-year-old Feridun Yükseltürk was found crushed under the fallen rubble, just steps from the spot where he sold simit from a cart daily for the past six years. The tragedy sent shockwaves through Cihangir, where Feridun was a beloved figure renowned for his unwavering generosity.

In Istanbul's iconic Haydarpaşa train terminal, the door of a crowded restaurant and bar opens to beams of sparkling light streaming across the Marmara Sea coast. Trains haven't departed Haydarpaşa for nearly three years while the station undergoes extensive renovations, but its restaurant, Mythos, is still open and popular as ever, a refuge for a faithful crowd of regulars, who come to drink at a train station even though they aren’t going anywhere. Built in the first decade of the 20th century by the Germans and gifted to Sultan Abdülhamid II, the station is a handsome and prominent icon of the city, an imposing presence on the city's Anatolian shoreline.

This delicious, pistachio dust-covered slice of Antep katmer is as decadent as it looks, and can be enjoyed on our Two Markets, Two Continents tour.

In Istanbul, there is a single neighborhood where one can find Uzbek mantı, imported Ethiopian spices and hair products, smuggled Armenian brandy, Syrian schwarma and sizzling kebap grilled up by an usta hailing from southeast Turkey’s Diyarbakır. Kumkapı – a shabby seaside strip of century-old homes, Greek and Armenian churches and residents from a vast array of countries that most Americans couldn't pick out on a map – is far and away the most diverse place in Istanbul. Nowhere else comes close. In perpetual motion, Kumkapı is home to a rotating cast of eclectic restaurants that cannot be found anywhere else in the city. Many of these open and close before we can squeeze in a second visit.

Editor's note: In the latest installment of our recurring feature, First Stop, we asked chef Somer Sivrioglu of the Sydney restaurant Efendy where he stops first for food when he returns to his hometown of Istanbul. Sivrioglu is the author of the cookbook Anatolia: Adventures in Turkish Cooking (Murdoch Books, April 2016). Any list is controversial and biased by its nature, and lists do not get any more biased than mine, as I am a Kadıköy fanatic and impossible to convince that there are better versions of food on the European side of Istanbul. I was born and raised in Kadıköy, and we lived first at Caferağa, five minutes to Kadıköy market, then in Moda, Kalamış and Fenerbahçe.

When you think about lettuce, if you think about it at all, it’s probably as the bland but virtuous base to a salad. But in days past in Turkey, this leafy green was just as often consumed as a snack in itself, as an essential part of a main dish or even as a sweet treat. “Marul [romaine] has been cooked as a vegetable since ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine times,” says food writer Aylın Öney Tan. “In many parts of Anatolia, it was a spring tradition to dip marul in pekmez (molasses) or honey, to eat it with something sweet that contrasted with the lettuce’s bitterness.” This wouldn’t really work with supermarket iceberg, of course – to fully enjoy lettuce’s culinary potential requires a fresh, high-quality crop.

Pickles are serious business in this shop, which has been passed down from generation to generation. An unusual, surprisingly delicious selection of pickled fruits and veggies are often encountered on our Istanbul walks.

On a recent sunny afternoon at the tiny Al Ahdab market, a wedge of light slashed through the front windows illuminating posters for condensed milk in Arabic script and one of an energy drink called Hell. The shop is easy to miss, tucked under the slope of Sarı Musa Sokak, which dips quickly from Millet Caddesi – the arterial avenue home to Istanbul’s Little Syria. By the front door was a rack of Cow Brand ghee, in large tin cans stacked like motor oil at a gas station. Entering the shop we were met with a complex layer of scents. By the drawers along the wall a fragrant cloud of spice hung – cumin, coriander, cinnamon

Green peas, grape leaves and squash are on offer at the market in the lovely neighborhood of Kuzguncuk, an essential component of our Born on the Bosphorus tour.

Istanbul’s Aksaray district is a difficult place to get to know. It's probably the most diverse district in all of Turkey and with a very high turnover rate. Those Georgian ladies you saw dragging an overstuffed plaid duffel down Buyuk Langa Caddesi yesterday? They might be halfway to Batumi by now. The Syrian family by the bus stop? They may be on their way to meet a man in Izmir about a boat. Who knows? Aksaray’s unknowableness makes some locals uneasy; there's got to be mischief in all that motion, with all of those foreigners. Such is the stigma of Aksaray, den of thieves.