the Balkans, Greece and Italy?

Perhaps it will, especially if Turkey becomes a member of the European Union, and also because Istanbul, with a population of who knows exactly how many millions of people, is one of the world's fastest growing cities, expanding north, south, east and west.

Will the built-up area ever stop? Will it go all the way to the Balkans, Greece and Italy?

Perhaps it will, especially if Turkey becomes a member of the European Union, and also because Istanbul, with a population of who knows exactly how many millions of people, is one of the world's fastest growing cities, expanding north, south, east and west.

But what I could not help thinking, as I made my way to Lake Buyukcekmece on the far side of the city's AtaturkAirport, is that the Ottoman Empire that drove Istanbul for the best part of half a millennium, once headed this way too.

Reconnecting Istanbul

If Suleiman the Magnificent, the 16th Century Ottoman emperor, had had his way, the road west would have led directly to Rome - the city that had been the hub of the empire that had created Istanbul, or Constantinople, in the first place.

Calling himself "Caesar of all the lands of Rome", Suleiman dreamed of reconnecting Istanbul with Rome.

He would do it by conquest, travelling on the road that passes over Lake Buyukcekmece on a bridge designed and built by his architect, Sinan.

In fact, his armies did set foot and hoof in Italy - but they never made it as far as Rome.

In recent years the superb