To Asia and Back

To Asia and Back

During the third week in February, Travis McGrath, my lifelong friend and childhood neighbor, decided to take some time off work and fly to Turkey for a week. He landed in Istanbul just as I got back from my weeklong excursion. The day after he arrived we met up near Taksim Square—an area famous for its nightlife scene—and walked down to the Golden Horn (an inlet that runs alongside the Old City) to catch a ferry up the Bosphorus.

If you ever come to Istanbul, I would highly recommend taking a Bosphorus ferry ride. The boat travels partway up the Bosphorus and then returns to the Old City, while making multiple stops on both the European side and the Asian side (one of the unique features of Istanbul is that it spans two continents as the Bosphorus is the dividing line between Europe and Asia). In addition, you get an excellent view of the city while enjoying the sea breeze and a nice cup of Turkish tea. 

Around lunchtime, our ferry made a 3-hour stop in Anadoluhisarı, a port on the Asian side famous for the fortress that towers above the dock and neighboring village. (Anadoluhisarı is the name of the fortress, but also of the surrounding section of the city). Even though Anadoluhisarı is part Istanbul, it is nestled between some very large hills, and thus has the feel of a remote Mediterranean village. Trinket shops and fish restaurants pepper the immediate area around the dock, but if you start making your way up the hill (towards the fortress), the village thins out and becomes more residential, with some houses, schools, and mosques.

Before grabbing lunch, the four of us (Travis, his travel companion Larissa, my friend Julia from my program, and I) started the steep trek up to the Anadolu Fortress. After about a 20-minute hike we found our way to the top of the hill, which plateaus and has some wonderful views of the Bosphorus and surrounding city. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to go inside the fortress, but it was still well worth the climb up there.

After snapping some pictures and lolling about on some very questionable wooden swings, we walked back down to the dock and treated ourselves to some fresh mackerel, fried mussels, and ice cream cones. We spent our remaining hour sipping some tea in a café overlooking the water, before getting back on the ferry.

Overall, I had a lovely afternoon and it was a great treat to share that time with such a close friend from home.