Day 12 of Turkey Vacation: Bosphorus Tour on August 30th, 2016

August 30th, second day in Istanbul and Victory Day in Turkey.

The plan of the day was to take a tour along Bosphorus Strait. Since we’ve got plenty of time in Istanbul and there’s no need for rushing, we decided to take the full/long Bosphorus tour, which goes all the way to Anadolu Kavağı with the opportunity to seeing Black Sea in the distance.

But before that, we needed to walk to the docks of Eminönü, passing a few attractions along the way. The first stop was Istanbul University.

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Founded in the 15th Century, Istanbul University is the oldest surviving education institution in Turkey. But in the aftermath of recent terrorist attacks, the university campus was only open to its students and staff. So we walked around it onto Süleymaniye Mosque.

Not after long we were at Süleymaniye Mosque. Since it's still early in the day, there weren't many visitors around.

Süleymaniye Mosque

Like other major mosques in the city, non-Muslims could only visit part of the inner prayer hall of Süleymaniye Mosque, but that’s enough to marvel at its magnificence.

Another attraction of Süleymaniye Mosque is that, one can directly see Golden Horn and Bosphorus Strait from the Mosque, with more mosque domes lining up to its North making the perfect foreground for pictures.

Süleymaniye Mosque also houses the tombs of some Ottoman emperors.

After leaving Süleymaniye Mosque, we headed for Eminönü Dock, passing some commercial districts with vendors moving and selling daily necessitates.

Bosphorus

There were many companies operating tours of Bosphorus Strait, we chose Şehir Hatları because it’s the only one operating the long tour that goes all the way near the Black Sea. Also, the company (seemed to be) government owned (that also operated regular passenger ferries across Bosphorus Strait and Golden Horn), which meant it’s very reasonably priced (full day long tour at 25TL per person). More information is can be found at http://en.sehirhatlari.istanbul/en/seferler/long-bosphorus-tour-362.html.

Outbound Trip

Even on Turkish Victory Day, the tour boat was largely empty, as most passengers were on the upper decks in open air. A glimpse of the harsh reality facing Turkish tourism industry.

By the way, since it’s Victory Day, there were Turkish flags flying all over the city, on palaces, in streets, basically they were everywhere, which was quite a sight.

We were on the same type of the boat as in the previous picture, which has symmetric bow and stern meaning it doesn’t need to turn around during docking. That was a very clever feature during short-hop trips like this one.

It was an overcast day, and from the angle of those flags it’s not hard to estimate the strength of winds on that day, which makes a very pleasant experience at the bow of the ship.

At noon, we were at Anadolu Kavağı. Our boat would stay in the dock for two and a half hours, giving us time to finish lunch in local restaurants, and visit Yoros Castle up the hill with views of the Black Sea.
The name “Anadolu Kaviğı” was derived from the word “kavak” which means “to hold, to stop or to turn around” in various sources and the name “Kavak” which means “border and custom control point” was given to this region.
The Bosphorus village, Anadolu Kavağı, whose history goes back to the very old times, was mainly occupied with fishing, gardening and serving ships who wait for suitable weather for sailing to Black Sea in Byzantium and Ottoman periods is now a mainly tourism village.
The quay of Anadolu Kaviğı is the last quay of Bosphorus on the Anatolian shore.
We were hungry at that time, so we decided to have lunch first.

I guess most visitors to would order sea food for lunch, that’s probably why I spent quite a long time spotting gulls and waiting for my dish.

After lunch, we walked uphill to Yoros Castle.

Yoros Castle

Up at Yoros Castle, we emerged ourselves in the pleasant sea wind, with a spectacular view of the surrounding Bosphorus Strait and Black Sea. There was even a local television crew shooting programs.

At 3pm we began our journey back to Istanbul.
Oh yeah, remembered I said that every Turkish boy seemed to be an excellent diver by nature? Before we departed, there were a bunch of local boys repeating the sequence of "climbing aboard and jumping into water", until the dock gate was closed.

Inbound Trip

After the day’s Bosphorus tour, we crossed Galata Bridge and headed for attractions in Istanbul New City, that is, Galata Tower, İstiklal Avenue, Taksim and so on.

Istanbul New City

After crossing Galata Bridge, the journey to Galata Tower involved walking (and climbing) old stone-paved streets lined with artistic shops, selling fashion clothes, oil paintings among souvenirs.

As with other buildings in Istanbul on this Victory Day, we saw Turkish flag on Galata Tower (that wasn't there the previous day). There was a huge line of people waiting to climb the tower, so we didn't join them. I heard of a restaurant on Galata Tower that offers spectacular views of the city, but since we weren't sure about our timing, we didn't reserve its seats.

Not after long, we were at İstiklal Avenue.

İstiklal Avenue

There seemed to be a demonstration planned for the day. My parents were super-nervous when the two words "Turkey" and "demonstration" met each other, so they rushed me all the way to Taksim.

When rushing through İstiklal Avenue, I spotted Sent Antuan Church, as the major Roman Catholic Church in the region, so we paid a visit to it.

Sent Antuan Church

There was a photo gallery of Syrian refugees, and Catholic Church's open attutide towards them. Well, since the Vatican would be the least affected European nation by the refugee crisis, they can easily shed lights of humanity on this issue, while other European leaders scratch their heads on how to settle them.

Probably to prevent this demonstration from going out of control, that afternoon local police shut off small portions of İstiklal Avenue, so we took a detour through a (crowded) narrow alley around it.
Because of that, there's no tram operating on İstiklal Avenue that day.
By judging by the looks of those police officers, they looked so relaxed and it's hardly convincing that they were preparing for a nasty demonstration that could go wrong.

After reaching Taksim, the nerves of my parents were still unsettled, as they saw more people (come on, it's a plaza, it holds more people than a street) as more threat to their life. So they decided to call it a day, and took the tram back to our hotel.

END