Bosporus Cruise

Anadolu Kavağı

The last weekend of September we decided to take a cruise up the Bosporus. The cruise takes about 90 minutes each way, and there’s also a 90 minute layover in Anadolu Kavağı, the last village on the Asian side of the strait, so passengers can hike up to the remains of Yoros Castle, a Byzantine fortress, and eat in one of the popular fish restaurants.

One of the most surprising things about the cruise is seeing the sprawl of modern Istanbul. There have been towns and villages all along the Bosporus for thousands of years, but only recently have they all become part of the city. The growth of modern Istanbul has connected the once scattered villages into the far-reaching veins of a mega city. 

Yoros Castle

Fortunately, Anadolu Kavağı retains some of its fishing village roots. The Asian side of Istanbul is not quite so expansive and thus Anadolu Kavağı is still isolated, except for the daily boatload of tourists. Even so, once past the touristy restaurants at the ferry stop, the town is quite quaint. We walked up the hill to see the castle before lunch. It’s about a 20 minute walk, but quite steep. On the the upper third of the walk the way switches from road to serpentine path twisting through restaurants that have sprouted up to serve weary tourists and offer spectacular views. We trekked on and were rewarded at the top with unparalleled views of the Black Sea, the Bosporus, and downtown Istanbul. Yoros Castle was also interesting, but has been closed to tourists in the past few years so there wasn’t much to see. After soaking up the views, we tried to find a recommended back alley fish restaurant which Russian sea captains supposedly frequent to eat and drink Rakı—more on Rakı in another post—but alas we couldn’t find it. Not finding recommended restaurants is a theme of our time here so far.

The Black Sea

[Aside: The over enthusiastic host/waiter syndrome is rampant here, as it was when I was in Italy. In the tourist-heavy parts of Rome we learned to avoid those restaurants like the plague because their food just wasn’t up to par. Here it’s a little different. In some neighborhoods in Istanbul there’s a street or a few streets full of restaurants and all the proprietors try to get you to sit, whether you’re a tourist or a local. But--and here’s the hard part--some of them are wonderful restaurants and some of them are awful. There’s not a good way to gauge which are which. We try to avoid these restaurants completely because we dislike the behavior, but sometimes it’s a choice between that and large chains (like Burger King—they have Burger King here! whyyyy). So if we’re in the situation that we’re stuck in a “restaurant zone” we usually look for a spot where locals are (or people that look like locals), and that the customers are eating more than just fries (the most common bar snack). Okay, aside over.]

Istanbul in the distance

On the ferry, Asia at our backs

After lunch we still had some time to kill before the ferry left so we walked around the village a little and found a small pier/boat launch. The sun was shining, the weather pleasant, and the sea traffic engaging. We watched some large freighters making their way north to the Black Sea, as well as some local fishing ships hauling in their nets. We saw one of these ships again when we were sitting on the ferry waiting to leave. The ship, about a 50 footer I think, steered prow first strait toward the jetty and glided right in to unload its catch. Diners were eating not 10 feet away. That’s some fresh fish.