Cruising the Bosphorus
The weather the afternoon was perfect for a cruise! I took my Dramamine in advance. :) Here we are at Kabatas dock.
We had just visited Dolmabahçe Palace so it was really cool to see it from the water!
Below: not sure what this building is, but it's ready for Republic Day on Monday!
We cruised all the way to the narrowest point in the Bosphorus. Here's Rumelihisari or the Rumeli fortress, built in the 15th century to control Bosphorus sea traffic. Rumeli is on the Europe side but there's a similar structure on the Asia side called Anadoluhisari.
There are lots of pretty homes and cute little neighborhoods, cafés, and interesting-looking places along the Bosphorus.
On the Asia side (above) are many older homes (mansions, actually) situated right along the water. These are called yali and most of them are passed down from generation to generation, meaning that you don't typically find these for sale.
Above is the Bosphorus Bridge, one of two bridges connecting Europe and Asia over the Bosphorus. This shot is looking at Europe. I wanted to walk across the bridge so that I could say I walked to Asia (or Europe) but alas, pedestrians are no longer allowed.
Coming back toward Kabatas, we were looking into the sun, which is too bad for photos but was really neat to see. If you could zoom into the above photo, you could see Ayasofya and several other mosques in the Golden Horn area, which is in the background here and on the right.
The cruise was a relaxing way to spend our penultimate afternoon in Istanbul.
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