Just back from ten days in Istanbul, which is near to being the cat
capital of the planet.  I've been visiting Turkey for 25 years.  When
I first went, there were many cats in very poor condition: matted fur,
obvious flea infestation, sometimes malnourished.  Over the last few
years they've improved enormously.  Some random portraits:

- there is a small yard near the top of the Tunel (the nineteenth
 century cable-hauled underground railway) which was full of cats
 when I first visited,  Back then, there was a scruffy second-hand
 foreign-language bookshop at the back of the yard, and a population
 of about 20 resident cats (and vast numbers of kittens).  Now, the
 bookshop's gone and there are far less cats. When I first took
 Marion there in 1991, we found a small white kitten who loved being
 picked up and cuddled.  So we looked for her when we were there next,
 three years later.  She'd turned into a big fat cat who wanted
 nothing at all to do with us.  Oh well.  This time the place was
 barricaded off for building work and a big fluffy black one mooched
 in and out of the barred gate.

- the fishmarket at the north end of the Galata Bridge is cat heaven.
 They have to share the spoils with seagulls but there are always
 dozens of cats here.  Mostly quite young, there are busy roads all
 round and most of them must get run over.  A short life but a happy
 one.

- just south of the top of the Tunel is the Galata Sufi centre.  This
 has an extended family of cats guarding the saints' tombs, the
 current matriarch being a dark tabby with a big fluffy tail who
 wanders between the Sufi centre and the surrounding music shops and
 restaurants.  She's very friendly, her descendants not as much.  In
 time they should learn that musicians are just as soft a touch as
 Sufis.

- at Anadolu Kavagi, the castle on the Asian side overlooking the
 Black Sea, there are a fair number of cats and dogs hanging about,
 but the undisputed King of the Castle is a magnificent dark ginger
 fluffy tomcat who lords it over his mediaeval ruins.  The fluff is
 not for decoration, it was near freezing and blowing a stiff wind
 when we were there.  Down at the quayside, the fish restaurants are
 an easy touch for a population of ginger and tabby cats who seem to
 spend all day in territorial disputes with the dogs.

- a street trader north of Taksim Square seemed to have left his cat
 in charge of a tray of watches.  She was an enormous fluffy tabby
 and white, like a Norwegian Forest or Maine Coon (not a common kind
 of cat in Turkey).  You could have trained her to inflict serious
 mayhem on anyone who walked off with a watch, but she just liked to
 roll over and get her tummy tickled.

- the most stunning place for cats I have ever seen anywhere is the
 island of Heybeliada in the Sea of Marmara.  This is carless -
 there are a few trucks and dozens of horses and carts.  The cats
 mostly hang out around the quayside since that's where the fish is
 (a few fishmongers, people landing fish, very good fish restaurants).
 Tabbies, silver tabbies, gingers, calicos, torties, blacks, tuxedo
 cats, and some very dark torties in a colour scheme I've never seen
 elsewhere.  They form something like queues at the fishmongers waiting
 for donations (or for the fishmonger to give up for the day and dump
 his stock).

I didn't see any cats on the ferries but they must stow away and cross
the Bosphorus all the time to commute intercontinentally between fish
markets in Europe and Asia.

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