Have you ever retained a keepsake from an old relationship? Maybe a photo, maybe a jumper you just couldn’t face giving back. Or perhaps 4,213 cigarette butts that your partner has smoked? That’s what the main character in the novel The Museum Innocence did when he hoarded the remains of his lover’s smoking. Each chapter of the book revolves around an object, or in this case a group of objects, that are then imagined to be placed into The Museum of Innocence at the end of the novel. But the author, Orhan Pamuk, has put together a real museum, full of real objects and you can go visit it in Istanbul.

The lipstick-smeared cigarette butts fill one entire wall of the museum and are the subject of chapter 68 in the book.

The Museum of Innocence one of my favourite museums and well worth a visit. My tip: read the novel before you go. And then take your copy along with you on the day for free entry.

I wrote about the museum, and Istanbul in general, in a piece about romantic getaways for The Club, the British Airways’ Executive Club magazine, out this week.

Image: with thanks and CCL to Katie Day for the great picture. She has a load of other super albums of museum and library photos on her flickr account.