THE PAST IS PRESENT

Beguilingly complex Istanbul has done a lot of soul-searching in recent years. Lale Arikoglu digs into the city's modern identity - while tracing the roots of her own

- Lale Arikoglu

On a damp morning in Istanbul, I pay a visit to Zeyrek Çinili Hamam, a recently unveiled museum in a 500-year-old public bathhouse that once echoed with the chatter of the Ottoman middle class. Getting there involves zigzagging through the winding cobbled streets of Zeyrek, one of four UNESCO World Heritage sites in Istanbul. It was a holy place 1,000 years ago, during the Byzantine Empire, but these days it's uncharted territory for most Istanbulites. Few people are out: only the odd chain-smoking vegetable vendor and some meandering octogenarians doing their grocery shopping. The fall air smells faintly of raw meat, thanks to the butchers who have long populated the neighborhood. Trying to make sense of Google Maps on my phone, I almost collide with several men haphazardly carrying a sheep carcass from a van. I am lost. Or at least I think I am, until I realize that I've passed the hammam four or five times without noticing its domed roof.

As happens so often in Istanbul, the past is staring right at me, even when I don't see it.

My first plane flight, when I was six months old, was to Turkey. Since then, I've visited Istanbul more times than I can count. I have hazy memories of summer trips to see relatives in the 1990s: spitting watermelon seeds into the Bosphorus with my cousins; crying on a stifling August day after being stung by a bee; getting brain freeze from a cherry dondurma; listening to "Careless Whisper" playing on a taxi radio.

My father's deep connection to the country kept us returning. He grew up in the southern city of Adana, where my grandfather Danış a handsome man I know only through photographs was once the mayor. Dad left for London at 19 to train as an architect, but our family home is lined with photographs and ephemera collected by the previous generations. Now 79, he says he still dreams in Turkish.