The Prince’s Islands

We took a break yesterday from historical sightseeing (kind of) by taking a ferry to Buyukada, the largest of the Prince’s islands, a one and a half hour ferry ride across the Bosphorus (see photos on following page, including view of Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque in top picture). The islands are very popular with people living in Istanbul and the guidebooks recommended against visiting on a Sunday. Since it was Monday and an iffy weather forecast, we were surprised at the hordes of fellow ferry passengers. Maybe a lot of people take Mondays off?

Topher had researched where to eat on the island and we easily found the place, a short walk away from the busiest area around the port. Our restaurant was connected to a fish store that supplied the rest of the island’s

restaurants so we ordered a LOT of fish and it was the freshest I’ve eaten in a while and perfectly cooked. The one small criticism of the fish was that it wasn’t cooked on charcoal, as so much of the food is here, but it was a delicious lunch nonetheless! Hugh ordered only vegetables, as he’s teetering dangerously close to vegetarianism, but at least he has grown to love eggplant on this trip!

There are very few cars allowed on the islands, so there are two ways to get around - bikes and horse drawn carriage. I was in favour of the latter, particularly as we had just eaten a lot of food, but the boys were keen on bikes. We found a place to rent them and took off to explore the island. The architecture was super interesting...lots of huge wooden Victorian mansions along the coast road. Wooden houses are very unusual here so we were surprised. I assume most are summer or weekend homes as many were boarded up. Some were very well kept with fancy looking gardens, etc, but there were also many fixer uppers, and some that were just collapsing in on themselves.

The traffic was surprisingly busy, as we were taking the same route as all of the other bikes and all of the horse drawn carriages. The smell of horse manure was powerful everywhere on the island, mingled with the usual smells of charcoal smoke and cat pee. There were a lot of ups and downs and I was feeling quite out of shape until I realized that I had a soft front tire, in addition to a clunky old bike. Topher kindly switched as his was too small anyway.

It started to rain just as we were getting back to town, and we got fairly wet, but managed to avoid a complete soaking by ducking into a cafe next to the port. We had just enough time before the 5:30 pm ferry to have some coffee and dessert.

By the time we got back to our neighbourhood it was getting close to 8 pm. After admiring the ever changing display of butter sculptures at the baked

potato place (pictured at left), Topher took the boys home for some leftovers and I had some solo hammam time in another neighbourhood place recommended by our host, the Aga Hamami, the oldest Turkish bath in Istanbul.

Even though I was pretty much the last customer, they didn’t rush me at all, and kept telling me to sit down and relax with a cup of tea in between the different steps of the hammam process. I asked them to skip the scrub since I’d just had several layers taken off a couple of days before so I had a bubble massage followed by an oil massage. It was heavenly! The temperature of the hammam itself was perfect, and my only quibble was that I’d like to have had more time just hanging out in the hammam before starting my treatment.

After I was done, I felt relaxed but energized so I called Topher and he met me for a drink at one of the dozens of bars nearby. It was so strange to see how busy the street life was at 10 pm on a Monday. The stores are all open and it’s as busy as a weekend before Christmas in Ottawa. I asked one shop owner what time they closed and he said 1 am!