Today is Monday and as I have mentioned before, in Turkey all the public monuments are closed.

This time I was prepared and I had planned things that did not depend on public service :).

I spent my day going back and forth between Europe and Asia on board of a ferry that took me along Bosphorus from Eminönü (close to Sultanahmet) to Anadolu Kavagi (North of Istanbul).

I arrived early in order to find a ferry that did this trip. I decided to go with the TDI ferry that is highly recommended by the guide book. I bought a round trip ticket for 7.5YTL and boarded the boat.

I looked for a good spot on the open deck. As soon as the boat departed, it seemed like a hoard of Korean, Japanese and Chinese tourists got released as they all flocked to the side of the boat to take thousands of pictures of everything and nothing. Not wanting to be left aside, I joined the frenzy and played with my elbows to save my 50 centimeters of rail and my seat. OK OK, it was not exactly that bad. Well, at least not anymore after I had knocked down that 60 years old Korean lady that was trying to sneak in between me and the rail! If Zidane can do it, so do I 😉

Anyway, the cruise is very nice and I spent most of the way up admiring the city’s beautiful landscape and the important monuments like the Dolmabahce palace and the fortresses of Europe and Asia. Actually, I did not see the fortress of Asia as I was awed by a bridge suspended over the Bosphorus linking Europe to Asia (or Anatolia if you are Turk) and did not think about looking for the small fortress.

The weather was not very good though and I started to feel cold because of the wind passing through the deck. As most of the good sights were passed, I retreated to the inside deck and started reading my book.

We arrived in Anadolu Kavagi after 1h45. I was thinking of just staying on the boat and do the trip back right away as I was not feeling like visiting anything there but it turned out the boat was not leaving for two and an half hours so I was kind of stranded there on the Asian side.

I strolled around town for a bit and finally settled on a rooftop cafe to have a drink while waiting for the boat. It was good because I wanted to catch with my thinking and managed to put some of it down on paper. The trip back went well but I was not that interested by the landscape anymore so I just read more of my book.

The view you get from the boat is great nonetheless and it would have been a mistake to miss it. I have always loved city landscapes and have great memories of Manhattan and the Hong-Kong harbor. Definitely a thing to do.

Actually, I did not really feel like doing much today so the ferry ride was not bad. Taking a long round trip with a 2 hour stop all by myself, was not that great of an idea though.