After you’ve hit up the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the 3,000-vendors-strong Grand Bazaar, make sure to visit these museums.

Turks are intensely proud of their heritage. But on my recent trip to Istanbul, we were encouraged to forget the past and look only at the present.

Twelve years ago Turkish writer Orham Pamuk set out to compose a novel in the form of a museum catalog. His first step, naturally, was to go looking for real estate in Istanbul for his museum.