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I've been to Istanbul several times.... the last a year ago.

This bridge is the main bridge connecting Sultanamet (the old Capital district - Aya Sophia, Blue Mosque, Topcopi Palace, etc) across the Golden Horn to the district to the north (can't remember the name)(Taxim?).

The area at the south end of the bridge is near the Spice Market and the Ferry Docks... lots of people there at any given time. The north end of the bridge is at the eastern end of a market area that has lots of hardware type things (along the north shore of the Golden Horn), and at the bottom of the hill leading up to Taxim Square (a big nightclub area)(near the round tower in the background of the picture).

I can't remember for sure.... do the trams run over this bridge? (Nope) I think they do... when we went out to Taxim we usually took a taxi as it was too late to take the tram.

I do know I've walked over this bridge many a time... always fisherman lining the rails... vendors with boxes of fishing tackle.... bustling life. Sad to hear of a bombing there.

Istanbul is an amazing, vibrant city. Sitting on the roof of Doy-doy's eating dinner with friends with the Blue Mosque on one side and the Princess Islands twinkling on the MarMarus sea on the other...... sigh.

It's been a long struggle for the Turks.... I may not like how they got the city in the past, but they are there now. There are aspects of Islam that I don't like (their treatment of women for one) but they have almost always been friendly to me. (The exceptions are rare indeed). The Turks lost so much of their empire after WWI that they are really stubborn about losing any more... can you blame them? How would you feel about being forced to get up a State?

I was (and am) quite upset with the Turks when they didn't allow us to cross their country leading up to the Iraq war... but it is their country and they had the right to refuse us. Having been in Turkey when the current government was elected, I think they were feeling their way into power having unexpectedly won. The Military were quietly doing their own thing as usual and offered us assurances that we could cross, not realizing that the new government would fumble the relationship with the US so badly. Caught them (the Military) by suprise too.

I get the impression that the first suspects in ANY bombing in Turkey is the Kurds.... and it may well end up being so. It somewhat helps to unite the population to have a well defined external "boogieman"... in this case the Kurds. And yet there are Kurds all through Turkey.

Just my 2 cents worth....