Saturday, 12 June 2021: View from Asia, 15th Century Turkish Castle, Wall Museum, Clay Pot Dinner, Whirling Dervishes

First I took the train under Bosphorus River from the European side of Istanbul to the A. The Marmaray Tunnel is the first connecting two continents. I went to Camlica Hill, a hill on the Asian side ~950 feet above sea level which has a great view of the Bosphorus and the city.

Park near the Train Stop

View from Camlica Hill

I had originally planned to take the ferry back and visit a palace on the European side, but I decided that I would rather visit a castle and took a bus to Rumlica Castle, built by the Turks for the purpose of attacking Constantinoble. The Turks already had a castle on the Asian side of the Bosphorus.

The Fortress on the other side of the Bosphorus

 This one was built right across the Bosphorus at the narrowest part of the river.

The fortress is built on a hill with walls between five and ten meters (~16-32 feet) thick, depending how much hill already gave them elevation, and between 3 and 5 meters (~10-16 feet) thick , depending how likely they thought the area would be attacked.

After that I took a bus to Taksim Square and another bus back to Tekfur Sarayı ("Palace of the Sovereign"), the wall museum that I had missed the day before.  It was a Byzantine Palace that had been part of Constantine's Wall, so the museum was as more about the wall than the palace.

Remants of Inner Wall in Middle; outer wall on left

Map of Istanbul showing the wall

The Palace (glass added later) with Constantine's Wall on the right

After that I took the train back to my hotel and ate dinner at a nearby restaurant. It was cooked in a clay pot, then the pot was broken and the contents served on a plate.

In the evenng I went to a Whirling Dervishes show in the evening--it was amazing how long they were able to stand and twirl in place.  The show took place in a former Turkish bath house. 

Everything today was a combination of public transportation and foot power: 16 miles on the bus, 9.4 miles on the train, and 5.6 miles on foot.  I was in two continents: Europe and Asia.