Explore the Historic Waterways of Istanbul

An Eye-Opening Tour of the Queen of Turkish Cities

Story and photos by Alison Gardner
Senior Travel Editor

Built in 1452 on the narrowest spot of the Bosphorus, the impressively-restored Rumeli Fortress guarded Ottoman interests between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean for more than 450 years.

I visited Istanbul for three days in 2001, and to my considerable surprise, it was love at first sight. I usually exit large cities, especially mega-cities, as fast as possible but Istanbul was different. One of the points of greatest fascination was the colorful past, the efficient present, and the inventive future of the city's waterways that have always defined so much of its larger-than-life personality.

With my earlier sense of regret at leaving so little time for Istanbul, I assigned eight days for a fuller exploration when I returned, this time with my husband. Part of my mission was to understand and experience its waterways in some detail. As they say in the real estate business, it's location, location, location. Without straddling one of the most strategic locations in the world, Byzantium, Constantinople and Istanbul would never have become such a showcase of European and Islamic influences and the only city to straddle two continents.

From the Genoese-built Galeta Tower (1348), visitors may overlook the Asian (left) side and the European side, including the Golden Horn.

The Bosphorus Waterway in Istanbul

With a mere 32 kilometers/20 miles starting in the heart of Istanbul and running east into the Black Sea, the Bosphorus is a waterway so narrow that, on a map, it masquerades as a descent-size river. Its width is 1/3 mile to two miles, making it an incredibly defense-able and control-able transport super-highway for both military ships of every size and commercial freighters. There are an astonishing number of supertankers carrying oil and natural gas from states that rim the Black Sea and mountainous, colorful containerships transporting who-knows-what in both directions.

Simply put, Istanbul's touristically-interesting north shore is in Europe; its more modern, densely residential south shore is in Asia. As the world’s narrowest strait used for international navigation, the Bosphorus is the only southern saltwater exit for Russia both commercially and for its military fleet. Even building a bridge across it for the first time in 1973 made the Russians understandably nervous. There are still only two bridges that cross the Bosphorus which means that rush hour takes place mainly on the water. And do those ferries rush!

Similar to any busy airport, the Bosphorus requires its own control tower with major shipping restricted to by-the-minute intervals in both directions so they don't bump into each other. Skittering between these behemoths of the sea is one of the world's largest collections of ferries as well as numerous smaller commercial and pleasure craft. On any part of the waterway, the daytime scene is delightful, perpetual and seemingly chaotic whether viewed from land or water. In fact, it is incredibly organized and efficient. Every day ferries move 300,000 people, and visitors too are always welcome to hop aboard this inexpensive transport to get around the city and enjoy the waterside perspective.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, European nobles and wealthy Moslems built exquisite summer palaces on Istanbul's shoreline.

A Day on the Water in Istanbul

For our eight-day stay in Istanbul, we were fortunate to find a small, inexpensive Turkish-owned hotel, in the heart of the must-see Sultanahmet district. The Hali Hotel's roof-garden breakfast room allowed us to survey the Bosphorus as our own each morning. Flanked on one side by the Blue Mosque and on the other by the even more venerable Hagia Sophia of early Byzantine vintage, this view quickly made us restless to experience all the shoreline highlights from a waterside perspective. Enter Dr Iffet Ozgonul, a nuclear physicist and university professor for the first half of her career, now the owner of Peten Travels. Over a tiny cup of strong Turkish coffee in an outdoor café, we shared with Iffet our Istanbul waterways idea, and she announced, “Leave it to me. In two days, you will have the perfect waterways day.”

From the breakfast roof garden of the Hali Hotel, we witnessed the waterways in action.

Nothing gets your attention better than having a fully-loaded containership bearing down at considerable speed on the back end of your small motor yacht, but most of our day was more serene and educationally-illuminating. We cruised both the Asian and European shorelines of the Bosphorus, learning far more than any guidebook could offer about the multi-layered history of this ancient city. On the European side, we explored both shores of the prehistoric estuary known as the Golden Horn and learned how the Byzantine rulers had successfully protected their naval fleet and their city from enemy attacks as early as the 10th century with an enormous chain pulled across the entrance to the Horn. Only once was the chain broken by a Venetian ship's ram, and only twice was it circumvented by assaults that required the intruders to drag their ships across land on greased logs to relaunch them inside the Horn. The first time, the Byzantine navy easily destroyed the intruders; the second time in 1453, the Ottoman leader Mehmed the Conqueror prevailed with his greased logs, marking the end of the Byzantine empire.

However, the most unexpected highlight our waterways tour revealed about this city that never fails to surprise is the very current news that a single-span 720-foot/240-meter footbridge across the Golden Horn has now been approved for construction. Not so surprising, you might say, until you hear that it was architecturally-designed by none other than Leonardo da Vinci in 1502. The urban planning and feasibility studies of "Leonardo's Bridge" have been completed, and the project is currently being considered as a unique possibility to celebrate Istanbul's selection as a European Capitol of Culture for 2010. Istanbul remains, as it has always been, an exotic blend of European and Asian culture and heritage, a cross between a living museum and a very contemporary city.