journey, shuttling back and forth between old and new. It was a journey filled with nostalgia and passion but mostly, to tell the truth, with sadness says Ayvazoglu, who deliberately chose this style for his book, "You have to use a different style, employ unusual language, if you want to get people to like history. In a sense I blended knowledge of history with literature." This writer, who imagines the buildings on the Divanyolu as thinking, feeling and talking creatures, occasionally puts himself in their places and tries to answer the question, "If this stone had been alive and conscious at the time of this incident, what would it have felt?"

THE COFFEE TRADITION LIVES ON

Our first stop on the Divanyolu is the Medrese of Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha. We listen as Ayvazoglu tells the story-the gay hum of the pupils hard at their religious studies, tempered by the Pasha's bitter end-and continue on our way. Ayvazoglu tells us that the Divanyolu has been famous for its coffeehouses since time immemorial. A little