Now it is time to reward yourself with the most pleasant out-of-town diversion -- a ferry ride on the Bosphorus, the strategic waterway that divides Asia and Europe. This excursion offers beautiful views of palaces and villages along the waterfront and a wonderful choice of fish restaurants in one of three villages on the north end near the Black Sea, Sariyer, Rumeli Kavagi or Anadolu Kavagi. It takes about 2 hours to get to the end of the line, 3 hours for a meal, and 2 hours to return the same way. You could shorten the ride by turning around sooner and just buying a snack on board, but the fish restaurants at the various stops are world-famous. Organized tours can make all the arrangements, but it is easy and much cheaper to do on your own.
Bosphorus ferries leave from the dock at Eminonu, by the Spice Market and Sirkeci Railway Station. An alternative trip to Princess Islands by hydrofoil is also available at the Galata Bridge end of the dock. The ferry terminal is a busy area where you can feel the pulse of the city, especially at rush hour when thousands of locals are walking between here and work.
To find the Bosphorus ferry, look for Pier 3 and the sign that says "Bogaz Hatti," operated by the official Istanbul Sehir Hatlari Boats. Don't let yourself be misguided by aggressive salesmen to one of the smaller boats alongside the commercial ferry, because this is another rip-off with a shorter cruise that takes longer. (Ferry departures are at 10:35a.m., 12:45p.m. and 2:15p.m.; with returns from the last stop of Anadolu Kavagi at 2:15, 3:15 and 5:00p.m.)
The Bosphorus is one of the world's busiest waterways with 130 large ships passing through daily, carrying petroleum products and other valued cargo, as well as a myriad of small craft. One of your first sights will be the extravagant Palace of Dolmabahce you just visited, with its 600-yard frontage on the water. Leaving the city, you soon pass under the Bosphorus suspension bridge, one of the world's longest.
Soon, you come to two remarkable fortresses facing each other across the straight: Rumeli, built by the invading Muslims in 1452 in their final siege of the city, and Anadolu, on the Asian side, built 50 years earlier as part of the same long-term attack. The forts enabled the Muslim forces to block food shipment to the city and prevent Christian allies from entering in support. It took the invading Muslims nearly a century before they conquered what was then Constantinople, the last refuge of the once-mighty Byzantine Empire. The ferry then passes under Fatih Sultan Mehmet, a newer suspension bridge linking the two continents, and then continues north past small suburban villages and lush green hillsides.
More palaces and historic old wooden mansions called "yali" line the shores on both sides as your ferry zigzags from Europe to Asia, stopping at several towns along the way. Many luxury apartments have been springing up along this desirable stretch and the older wooden homes are nicely maintained with colorfully-painted facades. When you have reached your preferred end destination and finish a meal, you could return to Istanbul by return boat or by a local bus, which would give you a different perspective and new scenery. You could even hop off along the way if you wish to see more sights, such as the beautiful Rumeli fortress, which is open as a museum.
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Comments
Posted by sazji on Saturday, August 07, 2010 at 9:33am
@norelojon I agree, the US certainly doesn't have any moral high ground. I think Turkey should recognize the whole truth behind the Armenians for example. But if it does, then let the US acknowledge openly what it did to the Indians, as Australia's prime minister did. Let Norway acknowledge the forced sterilization of the Sami; let everyone acknowledge their abuses and ethnic cleansing and decide to put it firmly into the past.
Posted by sazji on Saturday, August 07, 2010 at 8:53am
@norelojon One could also argue that the modern republic's assimilation policies did little to solve their problems; rather, they exacerbated them. It certainly hasn't made the Kurds go away. Good education would have done a lot more to unify people. These assimilation politics were misguided attempts based heavily on German notions of stability by ethnic purity; it's cost Turkey dearly and the only thing that has helped is as you say, acknowledging all the peoples living here.
Posted by sazji on Saturday, August 07, 2010 at 8:45am
@norelojon Well...that's a bit revisionist. :) It had a lot more to do with corruption, opposition from the Ulema to progress in many areas, new trade routes in the world and the Empire's inability to compete in world markets. The British Empire was huge competition. Corruption in the military was especially a big problem, and the fact that they couldn't do devşirme any more after the abolition of the Janissaries was another drain.
Posted by norelojon on Saturday, August 07, 2010 at 3:18am
@sazji And yes I agree with you wholeheartedly. We lost from many aspects, these multi-ethnic lands were replaced with boring, single religion, but I think we still have a chance. Even religion itself does not make that much difference. The importance is keeping the culture, than you evolve your religion as well. Just like Alevis. Even though many are Muslim now, but they practice it according to their culture in Anatolia. Their world-view isn't changed much, and that's give me the hope.
Posted by norelojon on Saturday, August 07, 2010 at 3:06am
@sazji And yes it was the fashion of those times, everything was different. Australians have lost generation problem, they have done worse things. In US we have seen different kind of problems but they are rooted in the same reality. The importance is to acknowledging and reversing our mistakes now. We are the same people at the end of the day, even greeks in greece and turks in turkey are the same people, only cultural difference is religion.
Posted by norelojon on Saturday, August 07, 2010 at 3:06am
@sazji Yes, that's true, but Ottomans collapsed mainly from the same problems, being a multi-national empire was a big disadvantage when nationalist movement started in Europe. So, if he would create a another model like Ottomans pursued, it wouldn't make a difference. So, assimilation was needed a bit, like how cultures are assimilated in the US, but now the conjuncture is much different, we can make a difference now by acknowledging every language, culture, ethnicity living in this land.
Posted by sazji on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 6:53pm
@norelojon The interests served by all this uprooting of people have always been those of a handful of people in governments, not of the people who usually got along just fine (until stirred up by those governments). We read "Turkey expels Greeks" or "Greece oppresses Muslims" but who actually does it, and who is gaining something from it? Who in Turkey has gained from the forced resettlements leading to the Dersim rebellion, who in Greece benefitted from the anti-Turkish nationalism in Cyprus?
Posted by sazji on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 6:41pm
@norelojon Ataturk created a new nation and it was necessary, but it didn't have to be one that replaced older discriminations with new ones. And since then both Greece and Turkey have been hypocritical about it, demanding equal treatment of each other's minorities while oppressing their own (and not only Greeks and Turks). Because the ostensible desire to secure the well-being of their compatriots across the border was secondary to achieve pure nation states. And everyone has suffered.
Posted by sazji on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 6:34pm
@norelojon It did create different problems - a war that arguably continues to this day. Think about it - the issue for the peoples who broke away from the Ottomans was not Turkishness, it was second-class citizenship as non-Muslims. The criterion for people in the population exchange was religion more than actual ethnicity. Emphaisizing Turkishness vs. non-Turkishness, the new state fueled other divisions that they could have minimized by equal treatment. But it was the fashion of the times.
Posted by norelojon on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 5:30pm
@sazji If he wouldn't create a new nation,we would be same as the middle east, having many problems, maybe possible wars. It is sad but that was the best choice even though it created different problems. Most nations have done the same thing, aboriginals etc. but the difference is they acknowledged their mistakes. It was needed to some extent, but it is now time to acknowledge our mistakes and apologize to those who are affected and try to keep as much as tradition, culture,the Anatolian spirit
Posted by sazji on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 3:58pm
@norelojon I'm not sure that denying the existence of Muslim non-Turks brought stability to the new nation of Turkey though. If anything, it's been a thorn in its side. Look at Wales - when the English denied them they had problems; now there is no Welsh separatist movement at all. Anatolia is unique of course, but taking the European nation-state model and trying to apply it in Anatolia, emphasizing one particular ethnic group, has brought a lot of problems.
Posted by sazji on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 3:53pm
@norelojon The notion of "official language" (if it means "only language") is a problem in a place like Turkey. The US for example has no official language. It's understood of course that you need English to be able to survive and progress there, but speakers of Spanish or other languages are free to educate their kids in other languages as well. In Turkey that's the case for recognized minorities like Greeks or Armenians, so why not Kurds? I think it will get there.
Posted by norelojon on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 3:27pm
@sazji The second problem is the problems that will be created after this new understanding. I am on the side of Ataturk on creating a new nation. It was impossible to create a stable democracy without doing something like this. Even if we remove Turks from equation, we would have the same problems, since many claims the same land, like Kurds and Armenians, they claim the same land. So, these lands were extremely diverse and that was needed at some point.
Posted by norelojon on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 3:27pm
@sazji However there are two problems. First, it is impossible to explain the new notion to the outsiders, since it is very unique, they will not get it. I am sure. This won't be like America because inter-racial marriage is widespread and the language is Turkish. It is America, but 500 years later.
Posted by norelojon on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 3:27pm
@sazji Yes, exactly, this what I stand for. The best way would be saying anatolians. I remember a genetic research, which is done by American Scientists, and they say that Turks (in Turkey), have the most diverse gene pool in their research. These are the one of the oldest lands in the World and entirely unique.
Posted by sazji on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 3:15pm
@norelojon Recently they've been talking about the issue in relation to Kurdish villages. Yes, people who can be traced directly back to the Turks of Central Asia are in the minority; it just means that we need a different way of defining ethnicity. And really, who knows who they mixed with before they started coming west? These ideas of ethnic/racial purity are based mostly on myth. In the US you have people defining what it means to be a "true American," and to them it means "white." Huh?!
Posted by norelojon on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 2:40pm
@sazji Yes, as I said they are Turkified and most of them meaningful, like Caykara, literally TeaBlack (Cay - Kara)
And yes, some people are not happy and those names should be revered but many people also have no problems as I said, and most villages are Turkified in time for hundreds of years. Real Turks are minority in fact, most people are Turkified version of Anatolians, not only Greeks or Kurds, also Armenians, Assyrians etc. , since Turks were dominant race, they were holding the power.
Posted by sazji on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 2:27pm
@norelojon Sometimes it happened this way, Magnisia > Manisa, Paliokastro > Balıkesir, Parthenia > Bartın v.s. But often it was government intervention. Look at a map of the Black Sea from the 50s and from the present. Çaykara was Katahor, Uzungöl was Şaraho, etc. These are places where people still speak Greek. and still use those names. And all the Turkish villages in NE Greece have Greek names now; to look at a map you'd never realize they were Turkish villages. Just as they want it.
Posted by norelojon on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 2:16pm
@sazji However, some people are not happy, for example Kurdish people. Their village names are changed forcibly, so it is a hot issue on Kurdish side and this is simply fascism, I agree on that. Kurds also have different characters that are not exist in Turkish such as x and w, so it was another problem since official language is Turkish. This is one of the thing that Kurds want. They say Kurdish should be official language like Turkish.
Posted by norelojon on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 2:15pm
@sazji Yes that's true, though I don't know much about Greece, but Turkish government has changed many names, that's true. However, if the inhabitants of that place are Turkish, or Turkified (from language aspect), it is not a wrong movement, as long as the inhabitants are happy, because most Greek names are not compatible with Turkish, hence they pronounce differently. Even if we leave the name, they will pronounce the same. Most names are turkified version of Greek names, like Istanbul.
Posted by sazji on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 10:41am
@norelojon Nationalistic movements in both Greece and Turkey have resulted in the changes of many place names to make them sound more Greek or Turkish. A lot of it happened during the Greek and Turkish juntas; in Greece some Greek names were even changed to make them sound more ancient. In Turkey especially hundreds of villages were renamed, this is being talked about a lot now. Some of it also happened naturally - ex. Kydoniai, translated to Ayvalık, then re-adopted by the Greeks as Aivali.
Posted by sazji on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 10:37am
@metesunshine For me it's certainly a love-hate relationship! I love it until I have to go out and deal with traffic, or we get a really still day and the automobile exhaust builds up. Especially this year I've found myself been thinking seriously about other cities to live in.
Posted by norelojon on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 9:53am
@sazji that's true, it has been 90 years since this name has been officially used, but before than that people in Turkey was saying Istanbul, this is like "kahve" in Turkish and coffee in English. English people pronounced according to their language.
Also, Constantinople was only 2-3 districts of the current Istanbul. Istanbul has 39 districts. Other lands were conquered almost 100 years before.
Posted by vander30 on Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 12:04pm
city of love and rafet el roman
Posted by cenkcez on Monday, December 14, 2009 at 5:09pm
istanbul is a big city. and crowded. istanbul is our heart
