June 16, 2002 - Bosphorus

Mathias, Jenn (another person staying at the hostel), and I took a ferry trip up the Bosphorus to a small fishing village near the Black Sea.  Above the village loomed a massive hill with an ancient Genoese fortress atop it.

One of Istanbul's business districts

A mosque at the base of the first bridge to the Asian side

A small fortress at the base of the second bridge to the Asian side

The entire fortress at the base of the bridge

A view of the Black Sea from the top of the hill where the ferry dropped us off

A piece of land jutting out into the sea with a lighthouse atop it

The hills rolled on for miles in all directions

The remains of the Genoese fortress which was built to guard the medieval trade routes to Russian and Central Asia

A view of the Bosphorus from the fortress grounds

A closer view of one of the crumbling towers

Me on the fortress grounds

Mathias on the fortress grounds

Jenn looking over the edge of the wall

More crumbling ruins

The view from the fortress straight down to the Bosphorus

More remnants of the fortress further down the hill

The marina in the village at the base of the hill

What looks like garages at the bottoms of these houses were actually for boats

The fortress as seen from our ferry on the way back to Istanbul

A view of Istanbul far off in the distance

A rocky face along the Asian shore

Every night Mathias and I would retire to the "Backpacker's Alley", right behind our hostel, for kebabs, beers and sweet tobacco water pipes