It was sunny, and so I took the ferry from Kabatas to Üsküdar on the Asian side of Istanbul, following the last mail from my sister with stuff we didn’t do.

The ferry system is great to cross over, you can use your Istanbulkart that works on Metro’s, Trams and buses, to hop on pretty much any ferry, for cheap.

It took about ten minutes to cross the Bosphorus again, speeding and avoiding a couple of near-collisions with tankers and smaller boats. It’s impressive how many ships cross here, and how little happens….

On the Asian side, I just strolled along the promenade, with a great view of the European side. I should do this same trip one evening, with the city lit up!

I got a great view of the Maiden’s Tower, a little castle-like light house in the Bosphorus that we had seen a couple of times from the ferries.

 

According to legend, the tower was built by an emperor whose daughter was prophesied by an oracle that she would be killed by a venomous snake on her 18th birthday. So she was kept there, and on her birthday, her father brought her a basket of tropical fruits, where – you guessed it – a venomous snake hid, bit, and killed her.

No tropical fruit for me though. Basically, all I did was to get fresh orange juice, some spicy buttered corn, Sesame simit and çay, the red Turkish tea, while sitting in a café, along the promenade, and watching the people pass by, reading my book about Istanbul.