On Wednesday, the sun appeared! Since we are going to Egypt tomorrow (Friday) The Egyptian sun god RA must be looking out for us. Our Turkey itinerary included a boat trip on the Bosphorus Strait and we were watching the weather for the best day hoping for sun. Having scouted the various options for a boat trip we decided to take the tram to the harbor for a short cruise. Upon our arrival at the dock we discovered the trip we wanted to take only runs on Sunday, but fortunately for us there were several other options and we quickly grabbed an opportunity on a small boat that was leaving immediately. Cruises are very popular and there are a number of large ferry and tourist boats that regularly take passengers to several ports along the straits. The ferry charges 1.75 Turkish Lira which is about $1.10 US, this is the same fare as the tram, so you can travel all over Istanbul for a couple of dollars.
The boat we decided to take holds about 20 people and there were 10 passengers including Ginger, the professor, plus the captain and a mate. The larger boats can handle several hundred passengers so you can see this was a bit smaller than what we had originally expected. The trip took about 3 hours to travel toward the Black Sea, then turn around and make one stop on the Asia Minor continent. So in the same day within a few hours we were on two continents, Europe and Asia Minor. The water was a little rough especially when we passed in the wake of one of the aforementioned large ships. I noticed the life preservers and life vests were fastened to the roof of the boat with nylon zip ties, these zip ties will resist normal human efforts to release the ties since they are rather strong. So without saying anything to Barb about the potential for disaster(she still does not know the danger we were in) should we have to go for a swim in the rather chilly waters, I made sure my knife was available to cut the ties should the need arise. Fortunately the captain was experienced, we made the three hour tour without incident and returned to a different location on the dock which just happened to be close to his brothers restaurant where they were cooking fresh fish.
Istanbul has for millenia been the crossroads between the East and West, the Silk Road ended in Istanbul, spices from the East were sent to markets all over the Mediterranean, goods from Europe traveled East. The Bosphorus strait is lined with castles, palaces, luxury homes from the past and present. Last night we saw over 50 large ships waiting in the Sea Of Marmara to transit to the Black Sea, as our waiter explained, the car traffic and the ship traffic is very congested and the ships have to wait their turn to travel up the Bosphorus.
There is some archeological evidence in the far distant past the Black Sea was not connected to the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean Sea. A land bridge existed separating these bodies of water, but at some time, possibly with the help of an earthquake the land bridge collapsed sending a catastrophic flood of water along the narrow valley. Some scholars believe this is the origin of the Biblical story of Noah.
Turkey has been an amazing experience, the people are friendly, helpful, and everywhere we went there was a lot of very old stuff. I can imagine that anywhere you put a shovel in the earth artifacts would be revealed since this are is considered the cradle of civilization. I am looking forward to return next month for a car trip along the Aegean to Ephesus, Bodrum, Heriaopolis, and Pamukkule.
We are returning to Athens this afternoon to overnight before departing on Egyptair to Cairo.
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