In spite of its location at the edge of Europe, Istanbul has always been right at the heart of Balkan history. Few cities have been so important for so long, and modern Istanbul is richly endowed with monuments of its imperial past. It can be a slightly melancholic place - those same monuments being a reminder that the city's multilingual, multiethnic mixture of peoples failed to survive the twentieth century. The capital of two empires is no longer even the capital of a country, the city of the Sultans having been overtaken in size and prominence by Ankara, a city of civil servants. But that hasn't made Istanbul less important - far from becoming a museum town, it just keeps on growing. Anyone who likes big cities will love Istanbul.