Nigel, though generally doing well, is still subject to the occasional relapse.

Today's was probably the result of all the internet stress of yesterday... From the beginning of our stay in Istanbul, the wifi at our accommodation has not wanted to connect us to certain sites we use often (this one, for example; or our bank; or Audible; or the Airbnb app...). We'd found a solution for this, which worked fine -- until yesterday. Meanwhile, the Malaysian mobile internet that we use when we're out and about, though normally very reliable, behaves totally unpredictably here. So it was a triple whammy: a conservative wifi, a no-longer-working workaround, and a blinky mobile provision.

Definitely all a bit riling, and Nigel's headache was up a notch again this morning.

So we postponed our plan for a longer trip, and decided to just pop across the river to Sutluce (whose trim little ferry landing is featured at the top).

It turned into a very pleasant little venture.

First up, though, you have to get past the Golden Horn Conference Centre, housed, apparently, inside a former slaughterhouse, and now squatting by the river like an overgrown toad.

So you go up. Of course you do. When in doubt, in Istanbul, go up.

In this case, you go up past picturesque graveyards and along quiet streets, and then -- predictably -- you go down again, to the riverbank.




Here you'll find various interesting bits of sculpture. Below is Manas, hero of the eponymous Kyrgyz epic that has been described as the "Iliad of the steppe". He was inaugurated here in Sutluce in 2017 by a number of Turkish and Kyrgyz dignitaries, who emphasized in their speeches "that the Turkish and Kyrgyz peoples constitute the arms of a single nation".


A little further along is this one, also Turkic. But I didn't pay enough attention to the details, and can find surprisingly little about it in retrospect:


Eventually you reach the point where the Kagithane Creek diverges from the Golden Horn, which is pretty much your signal to turn round again:


And on the way back you can have really nice wraps out on the terrace at Sonbey Durum. No pics of the wrap, because -- well, it's all wrapped up and all you can see is the flatbread casing. But here's Nigel's tea:


Once back across the river we treated ourselves to coffee at El Rincon. We tend to be a bit sniffy about cafes whose primary goal is to cater for tourists, so we haven't indulged much, and this was actually only our third coffee experience in Balat. What we were really interested in was testing out their wifi. Which seems pretty effective. So if our mobile internet (the one that's currently driving my computer) has gone into lost mode again tomorrow morning, El Rincon is where we might be spending some of Friday. Here's the mural opposite: