Galata Bridge

This guide to Galata Bridge in Istanbul opens in 1502, when Leonardo da Vinci, freshly out of a patron in Milan, wrote to Sultan Bayezid the Second offering to build a single-arch span across the Golden Horn unlike anything built before. It follows what happened to that letter, and the five centuries of wooden, pontoon and iron bridges that crossed this water in its place, including a German-built span that burned in 1992. Look down from the railing at the fishermen lined up along today's bridge, out at dawn every day.