We did a bit of a longer boat journey today. We walked to Fener, took the boat to Karakoy, and walked back across the Galata Bridge to the busy ferry-port of Eminonu. Here we took ship for Bebek, which is further up the Bosphorus than we'd ventured so far, but still on the European side.

This is such a beautiful stretch of water. You can understand Orhan Pamuk's fascination. It is flanked by steep, wooded hills, on which houses and other beautiful buildings appear to be stacked, as though on higgledy-piggledy shelves. A constant stream of shipping passes through it. And we had a zingingly bright blue day for our journey.






So you get off the boat at Bebek, and you can't help having a little conversation with yourself:

"It feels as though we're at the seaside."
"No, but wait, it IS the seaside."
"This can't be the sea. There's land right THERE."

And there is. Only about a kilometre away. The strait is so narrow that you can make out the buildings on the opposite shore quite clearly (even with eyes as bad as mine).




Bebek means baby in Turkish (not to be confused with Indonesian, in which it means duck...). But there seems to be little consensus as to why it's called that.

There's a lovely promenade that skirts the sea as far as the Rumeli Fortress. You walk past scores of smart yachts (many for hire). And there are plenty of cafes -- also smart.

In fact, Bebek is known as "a favorite of the Istanbul elite", and "a place to see and be seen". It reminded me very much of some of Auckland's smart seaside suburbs.

Not surprisingly, then, when we stopped off for lunch, it was not the cheap-and-cheerful experience we have become used to in Istanbul.

Never mind, it was nice to have a beer and a sandwich on the pretty terrace, even if it meant we were back with English prices. We tried a new beer. The chips came with a dusting of some interesting spice. The sandwiches had lots of cheese in them. And the folks at the next-door table were entertaining. They were celebrating a birthday, and very much represented what our Austrian friend used to call the "kissy-kissy brigade" (die Bussi-Bussi-Gesellschaft). There was certainly plenty of MWA-MWA-MWA-ing going on. But they were nice to us poor, unfashionable folks, bidding us welcome when we arrived and bye-bye when we left.




The walk continues very scenically:






Unfortunately, the zingingly bright blue day, combined with the now significantly warmer temperatures, were reigniting Nigel's headaches, so we didn't go into the Rumeli fortress, as we'd planned. Instead we walked on to Emirgan, which offered more ferry opportunities back to Eminonu.

It was hot by now, and the path takes you away from the cooling sea breeze. Even so, the cliff-clinging environment is interesting, and of course, there's eventually more of that amazing sea.





We're not generally out and about in the busy late afternoon period, and were taken aback by how loud it gets when all the schoolkids pile onto the ferry, and how crowded it gets round the Galata Bridge and Eminonu at that time of the day. Still, we retraced our footsteps back across the bridge, and didn't have too long to wait for the ferry home.

Nice day. Just a pity Nigel was somewhat sub-par for our last major outing.