1. Berlin Canal Walk

Berlin may not be defined by its waterways — like, say, Amsterdam or Venice — but they are among the city’s most endearing characteristics. On a spring day, there are few better walking routes than the stretch of the Landwehrkanal that runs through the Kreuzberg quarter and the rapidly gentrifying immigrant district of Neukölln. Built in 1850, the Landwehrkanal was once used as a drainage system and to transport goods. Today, it’s used mainly by tourist boats and other watercraft, many bearing anti-capitalist flags or rigged with bass-heavy sound systems.

Start at the Lohmühlenbrücke, where the canal forks out to the River Spree. The former East Berlin district of Treptow starts just on the other side (the bridge used to come to an end at the Berlin Wall). Follow the weeping-willow-lined canal westward. If it’s Sunday, ironically attired residents can be found selling hand-drawn comic strips and vintage costume jewelry at the canalside Nowkoelln Flowmarkt. On Tuesdays and Fridays, the lively older Turkish Market unfolds a bit farther down. Produce, baked goods, spices, fabrics and other wares represent the Turkish-Kurdish-Arab community that has historically resided here. In the barking cadences of a seller at an Istanbul bazaar, Turkish men in tracksuits belt out the price of tomatoes — in German.

Cross Kottbusser Damm and follow the canal past the startlingly grand, curved facades of the Jugendstil residences that stare across the water at the remaining wing of the neo-Classical-style Fraenkelufer Synagogue, which was desecrated by the Nazis but once again houses an active congregation. Continue on to the Admiralbrücke, a wrought-iron Art Nouveau bridge; depending on your level of tolerance or inebriation, join the backpackers and others drinking beer and listening to Spanish street musicians play bad Oasis covers. Finally, venture on until you reach the grassy banks of the Planufer where residents picnic and read as boats slide by. — CHARLY WILDER

2. In Istanbul, the Golden Horn



Turkey is a majority Muslim country, but Istanbul’s religious history remains multicultural. Evidence of this is visible during a two-and-a-half-hour walk along the Halic, or Golden Horn, which separates the Old City from the more contemporary Beyoglu. At the Fener (“lighthouse”) bus stop, cross Abdulezelpasa Caddesi — the main shore road — and walk past the trinket shops to the walled compound that includes the Church of St. George, seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Inside, you’ll find the ivory-inlaid throne of the patriarch, Bartholomew, and a wall of gilded icons. Farther up the main avenue is the golden-domed Church of St. Stephen of the Bulgars, constructed of iron panels that were cast in Vienna, barged down the Danube and pieced together here in the late 1800s.