2010 Trip: Istanbul Day 4

6th May 2010

I’m a couple of days behind, but before I talk about the 6th, I’m currently on a bus from Istanbul to Edirne. The Turks know how to do buses! They have plush comfortable seats with a screen in the back of the seat playing local TV. I have mine currently set to a camera at the front of the bus. Its flasher than most airlines.

Anyhow, back to the 6th. It was my birthday! One year older, I’m now 24. Today we had a prompt start in order to catch a cruise up the Bosphorus. We were waylaid a little; however, when Bree’s card was swallowed by an ATM. Luckily, it was right next to a branch and we were able to get it back. She had to sign for it and was told it would now work. After a second attempt, she had to ammend the signed sheet to say that her card had been swallowed (twice) and had been returned to her (twice).

Anyhow, as luck would have it, we weren’t that late and a series of good connections got us to the boat at Eminonu with ten minutes to spare! We headed out up the Bosphorus, passing such sights as huge moored cruise liners and the Dolmunbache Palace (which I visited last time I was here). We then past the mosque we had visited the evening before heading up under both of the bridges over the Bosphorus, past suburb after suburb, all the way to Anadolu Kavagi, right at the edge of the Black Sea.

Istanbul is vast, in this direction alone it stretches 30km, apartment block after apartment block. We even past streches covered with plush mansions (some now fairly deplapidated and past their prime) from every period in the last 200 years. The township we landed at doubles as a tourist stopping point and a military barracks.

We climbed the hill behind the town, past all manner of fish restaurants to the ruins of an Ottoman castle, Yoros Castle, on the top. We gazed down the Bosphorus in one direction and out into the rather forboding Black Sea. The view was stunning, giving sense to just how vast this place is. Ship after ship, from oil tankers to container ships to fishing vessels, stream through the channel. The centre of the world indeed!

We ate lunch at a little fish restaurant half way up the hill, in a shaded courtyard, with fantastic views overlooking the Bosphorus. Delicious salads, chips (with tomato sauce and mayonaise, as is customary here) and calamari (spelt ‘calamary’) with a kind of garlic aioli. Yum.

After this we headed down the Bosphorus. We were all exhausted. We just snacked for dinner and caught up on the outside world. Simon arrived home from work at 10:45, his usual time, he had procurred the most amazing cake to celebrate my birthday. I have to say it was one of the most fantastic cakes I had ever eaten and the concept was brilliant. It was basically a chocolate mud cake of serious awesomeness, except it was full of profiterolls. There were six chocolate glazed profiterolls, filled with custard, on the top of as well. Yum. Finally, thank you to everyone for their kind birthday wishes!

Bird On The Bosphorus