The Mighty Bosphorus

Everyone - Turks and tourists alike - said a Bosphorus cruise is a must, so we set out on Saturday morning for a 6 hour cruise - 1.5 hours up the Bosphorus to Anadolu Kavaği, with a few stops along to the way to load/unload passengers (but no chance to get off to sight-see), a 3 hour layover in Anadolu Kavaği, then 1.5 hours back. We chose the right day - it was very hot but there was a great breeze on the river. The Bosphorus river connects the Black Sea up north with the Sea of Marmara, which Istanbul is on, due south. The mighty Bosphorus is a busy shipping lane, maybe 20 miles from end to end, and unfortunately the many tankers and other cargo ships detract a bit from the view.

The cruise itself was peaceful, and a great opportunity to people-watch. The Muslim women were particularly interesting - we saw one woman covered head to toe in black, even black gloves on her hands. I just don't know how she could breathe and not pass out from the heat. Other, mainly young, women covered their heads and arms (down to the wrists), and legs to the floor, but were very stylishly dressed - high heels, colorful outfits, matching purses. Much better outfits than I can put together for a day of sightseeing.

Anadolu Kavaği is mainly a tourist stop catering to the Bosphorus cruises, with numerous restaurants along the waterfront selling fish and ice cream. From the waterfront you can hike straight up, about 1/2 a mile, to the "castle" on top of the hill. From there you can see the rest of the way to the Black Sea, and back down to Istanbul. It was quite a hike, and very, very hot, but worth the climb. The castle itself is in a shambles, but you can sit on the wall and look out and catch the breeze. After walking around the ruins a bit, we headed back down the hill for our cruise back to Istanbul.

The food in Istanbul is good, but not great. Surprisingly few veggies - lots of meat and bread. We went to the Tarihi Sultanahmet Köftecisi restaurant, famous for its köfte (Turkish meatballs). You need to check out their very cool website. After dinner we encountered our first (and only, to date) scam. There is this interesting Turkish ice cream that looks like taffy - they stretch it out of deep vats with a paddle. Vendors sell it up and down the street. As we were walking past one kebap shop with an ice cream vendor out front, the kid (maybe 14?) started doing a "show" involving Eric - it was long, well orchestrated, and designed to suck you in - he'd act like he was going to put an ice cream in your hand, then at the last second would leave you with an empty cone, stuff like that. Before we knew it we had 5 cones. When we asked the price, his accomplice said "50 lira" (about $35). We gawked at that and said we'd pay him 10 lira (ice cream earlier in the day was 1.5 lira so this seemed fair). It was just terrible - he lowered his price, but stopped at 25 lira, and we kept offering 10, then 12. It was clearly in his best interests to take what we offered and have us move on because during this argument we told the other people coming by not to get sucked into the "show". It ended with us leaving 15 lira and walking away, but it was very awkward and unpleasant. We had heard of other scams involving shoe shines and restaurants that give you food you didn't order, acting like it's free, then charging you for it, but this was a new one for us. The ice cream wasn't even that good...