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actonsteve
actonsteve
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Editor Pick

Swimming in the Sea of Marmara

  • August 27, 2007
  • Rated 4 of 5 by barbara from Atlanta, Georgia
Swimming in the Sea of Marmara

From Istanbul you can just see in the hazy distance the chain of land that makes up the Prince's Islands.

Here unfortunate threats to the Ottoman throne were often exiled...after having been blinded.

Nowadays, people use the islands for a pleasant escape from the city.

According to our guidebook, Sunday is the worst time to visit because of crowds, so we took a ferry to the islands on a Monday.

With ferry service cheaper than cruises up and down the Bosphorous, we decided to island hop at least once. Our first stop was Buyukada, the Great Island. Here Leon Trotsky made his home for a time. Here Leon Trotsky's daughter committed suicide.

When we got off the ferry, we found a port similar to the port we had visited in Asia after a Bosphorous Cruise. But it wasn't evident what we should or could do.

We had read about two monasteries on the island, so we approached the queue of horse and carriage drivers and asked to be driven up to one of them. The driver did not speak English. After an interesting string of broken Turkish and sign language, we got into the carriage and enjoyed a ride up to the top of a hill. Unfortunately the driver dropped us off at the more modern monastery, a closed building at the time of our visit. And then we were stranded.

We walked a while, exploring, and found a more impoverished area than was evident in the tourist sections of Istanbul. As we made our way back to the port, however, the houses began to look nice again. We got lunch by the water and agreed that the visit had been interesting, but we should have gone to the older monastary...and we probably wouldn't recommend a special trip to this island.

We were off to Kinaliada next, the first island that you actually reach via ferry coming from the city. Here we wanted to go swimming. We got off the ferry and walked to the right where we saw that many other people had the same idea. The thin beach was rocky, but the water was blue. We scanned the horizon for dolphins. We found a place to spread our towels on a concrete area above the rocks---seats can be rented for 5 lyra each---and applied the suntan lotion.

The water was cool but refreshing. Vendors walked up and down calling out the price of bread, holding books of henna designs you could get applied to your skin. Dark-faced men with white teeth and curls of wet, lovely hair on their legs threw their giggling children into the water. A woman in a green head scarf sat near us with the waves licking at the only exposed part of her body...her feet...as foam wet the hem of her skirt.

We caught the 4pm ferry back to the mainland.

This was a most enjoyable retreat and one of my son's favorite experiences in Istanbul.

From journal Turkey with Teenager

Editor Pick

The Lair of the Medusa - the underground cistern

  • April 15, 2007
  • Rated 5 of 5 by actonsteve from London, United Kingdom
The Lair of the Medusa - the underground cistern

There was one sight in Istanbul that I definitely wanted to see: Yerebeta Sarnaci, the underground cistern.

Back in 1545, the French traveller Gyllius observed the city's citizens lowering buckets through holes in their basements to obtain water. They had access to one of the underground reservoirs that dotted Old Stamboul. Built for the city's use in times of siege, they were built over and forgotten for centuries. This one dates back to about 527AD, making it nearly 1500 years old, and is the same age as the church/mosque of Hagia Sophia. The cistern is one of the most evocative and atmospheric sights in the city.

To get there, get off the tram at Sultanhammet stop on Divan Yolu and walk to Yerebatan Caddesi. The entrance looks like a stone tube station and it costs about 10 Turkish lira to enter. Inside a set of crumbling stone steps lead into stygian darkness. You emerge into a cavernous underground room stretching 200m or so. The room is lit by orange light throwing eerie shadows onto column after column. The columns rise out of the water-covered floor and reach the ceiling, its quite a sight. There are 336 columns with 4 feet of space between them. The flickering light shows off the antiquity of the columns as it resembles light from torches. The orange light only reaches half a column leaving the rest in inky darkness. The whole room looks like something from the underworld, as if there is something devilish going on in the shadows.

Before 1987, when it was refurbished, the only way to see it was via rowboat, but nowadays there are wooden catwalks weaving their way between the columns. James Bond came this way with Turkish ally, Kerim Bey and Russian defector, Tatiana Romanova in From Russia With Love. It does look like a film set, it reminded me of something from a 70s Sinbad film. The eeriness was compounded by the constant sound of dripping water. The centuries-old ceiling leaked like a sieve with quite large droplets falling from above. There are fish down there in the water; huge, orange goldfish which have probably lived down there for generations. They swim under the catwalks and can be seen nibbling the algae at the base of the columns.

A statue of the Medusa lies at the back of the reservoir though, stangely, she has normal hair instead of snakes. The statue is also upside- down and lit continuously with changing pink and green light. Medusa, eh? In a watery room full of columns? A fitting lair, I think. Perhaps this stone medusa is the real one, a returned reflection has turned her to stone. This eerie underground cistern brings on such thoughts. It's a place where you can let your imagination run wild.

From journal Istanbul - "City of the World's Desire"

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