Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
climb. In the morning when the sun is still easterly one has a clear
panoramic view of the whole city: the Bosphorus almost as far as the
Black Sea, the Marmara with the Princes' Islands, and behind that
the great snow-covered peak of Ulu Dağ, the Bithynian Olympos.
Towards evening the sun sets almost directly behind Stamboul
and its domes and minarets are silhouetted against the flaming
western sky.
KIZ KULESİ
One of the most familiar sights in Istanbul is perhaps the one least
visited. This is Kız Kulesi, the Maiden's Tower, which stands on a tiny
islet a few hundred metres of Üsküdar. Its Turkish name is derived
from the legend concerning a princess who was confined there by her
father to protect her from the fate foretold by a dire prophecy: that
she would die from the bite of a serpent. Needless to say, the princess
was eventually bitten by the serpent, smuggled out to the islet in
a basket of grapes. In English the place is usually called Leander's
Tower, in the mistaken notion that Leander drowned there in his
attempt to swim the strait to see his lover Hero, which legendary
tragedy actually occurred near Abydos in the Dardanelles. According
to Nicetas Choniates, the Emperor Manuel I Comnenus in the twelfth
century built a small fortress here to which he attached one end of the
chain with which he closed the strait, the other end being attached
to the Tower of Mangana below the acropolis. Since then it has been
used as a lighthouse, semaphore station, quarantine, customs control
point and home for retired naval officers. The present building dates
from the eighteenth century. It has recently been rebuilt and now
houses a restaurant and café.
THE PRINCES' ISLANDS
The most famous of all the beauty spots in the vicinity of Istanbul are
the Princes' Islands, the little suburban archipelago just of the Asian
coast of the Marmara. The isles are about an hour's sail by ferry from
the Galata Bridge, though in spirit they seem at a far greater remove
than that, so diferent are they from the rest of the city in atmosphere
and appearance.
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