Pierre Loti
Hilltop tea garden overlooking the Golden Horn, steeped in a French novelist's forbidden love.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Pierre Loti in Istanbul follows Julien Viaud, a young French naval officer who arrived in Constantinople in 1876 and fell into a secret love affair with a Circassian woman he called Aziyadé, met in the teahouses on this same hill above the Golden Horn. It traces the novel he wrote from that affair, published under a pen name he'd picked up at sea, and the gold ring bearing her name that he wore until he died. Listen from the hillside where he once sat and wrote.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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