On K?nal?ada absolute silence reigns. There’s not a car on the road and barely a human being stirring. Just weeks before the tourist season kicks in on the Princes’ Islands, the streets belong to the cats and dogs, but every now and then a curious plopping noise emanates from near the seashore.
Wandering down to investigate, I find that it’s being caused by the seagulls and crows who are plucking purple mussels from the water’s edge, flying up into the air, then hurling them onto the promenade below to crack the shells and obtain access to the defenseless creatures inside them.When the sun comes out, many visitors’ thoughts turn to the idea of a Bosporus cruise. What could be more enjoyable than floating past the Dolmabahçe Palace and eyeing up the yal?s (waterside mansions) of the rich and famous, then stopping off for a leisurely fish lunch at Rumeli or Anadolu Kava??? But ?stanbullus have another trick up their sleeves, and that is the Princes’ Islands, a cluster of four inhabited and five uninhabited islands gathered together in the Sea of Marmara within easy day-trip reach of the city center.
Getting to the islands is just part of the fun. For a mere TL 2.80 each way, you can cruise from Kabata? or Kad?köy to each of the islands in turn, sitting out on the deck to soak up the best of the views. It takes almost an hour to reach the first stop, but during that time the crew circulates with refreshments. Many of the locals also stock up on simits before boarding, then break off chunks and toss them to the seagulls that wheel above the boat screeching for tidbits.
With careful planning and an early start you could just about visit all the islands in the same day, although it makes better sense to stick with just one, or perhaps take in one of the smaller islands on the way as a taster for one of the larger ones. K?nal?ada (”Hennaed Island”) has the least to offer, being the smallest island and closest to the city. It’s also the only one of these car-free settlements which doesn’t have a fleet of phaetons waiting to ferry visitors around it, which means that you’ll be obliged to walk or cycle. Not that there’s much pain in that, especially at this time of year when the Judas trees are coming into bloom alongside the wisteria, the mimosa and the chestnut trees.
The ferry’s second stop is at Burgazada, where a quick phaeton tour of the island passes the Monastery of St. George with its glorious original fittings, and the much cruder Church of St. John the Baptist, newly restored after damage done during the 1999 earthquakes. In theory you could visit the museum in the house of the short-story writer Said Faik Abas?yan?k, but as so often these days it’s closed for restoration and looks as if it will be for quite some time to come. There’s a lovely secluded fish restaurant, the Kalpazankaya, here. Otherwise, it’s soon time to re-board the boat for Heybeliada, just a hop and a skip away across the bay.
Heybeliada takes its name from the supposed resemblance between its profile and the shape of a “heybe,” or donkey bag. Be that as it may, this is definitely a place where it’s worth signing up for the phaeton tour as the island is significantly larger and its main attractions more spread out. As the boat pulls into the quay, you will see, to the left, the huge Naval High School with its brightly painted facade. This is off-limits to visitors, which is a shame because lurking in the grounds is the Church of the Panaghia Kamariotissa, the last church built by the Byzantines before the conquest of ?stanbul in 1453 and the last resting place of six of the patriarchs of Constantinople.
Instead you can visit the hillside Monastery of Haghia Triada to which is attached the Halki Seminary, a running sore in relations between Turkey and Greece, which would like to see it reopened and training priests again. In theory you can visit the one-time home of ?smet ?nönü, the second president of the republic. However, chances are that you’ll arrive to find this, too, closed for renovation.
But all this wonderment is but a foretaste for the jewel in the crown of the islands, which is Büyükada (Big Island), the last in the series and by far the most magnificent. You will barely have taken a few steps inland when a strong whiff of manure will assail your nostrils because here, as on the smaller islands, everyone, including the locals, gets around by horse-drawn phaeton rather than by car. The phaetons stand waiting near the clock tower, where a price list sets out where you can go in them.
Most people opt for a long tour of the whole island, which takes them into the pine-clad interior, but you should certainly arrange to break your journey near St. George’s Monastery, where a rough path runs up the hillside to a church which is a scene of pilgrimage even today. The architecture is nothing much to write home about but the views are something else. From up here you have a panoramic view over much of the city which, with its densely packed high-rise buildings, seems like another world despite its geographic proximity. To make things even better, the monastery operates a small restaurant where you can tuck into meatballs in the open-air for a fraction of the price you’d pay to experience similar views from the mainland.
The phaetons are great, but they have one snag, which is that they are rather like the famous surrey with the fringe on top from Oklahoma — and that fringe tends to get in the way of appreciating the view! In the past wealthy ?stanbullus often kept a summer home on the islands, and it’s well worth abandoning horsepower and stepping out along Çankaya Caddesi to admire some of the most magnificent mansions. If there is a more beautiful street in Turkey, it’s hard to imagine where it could be. Along this single road you can admire houses in a range of 19th and 20th-century architectural styles, all of them set in lovely, well-maintained gardens amid a luxuriant mix of palms, pines and plane trees. Among the most impressive are the Kültür Evi at No. 21, which was restored by the diligent Touring and Automobile Club of Turkey in the 1980s and which has a small café on the grounds; the extraordinary red-brick Mizzi Kö?kü at No. 31, which looks like a British water tower and is currently for sale; and the exuberant, magnificent Con Pa?a (John Pasha) Kö?kü, built for the man who first brought the ferries to the island and now undergoing comprehensive restoration.
Büyükada is so lovely that you’re bound to want to linger, and there are several hotels to choose from, the most delightful of them being the period-piece Hotel Splendid Palace with its twin domes, which sits just across the road from the island’s newest addition, a branch of Kahve Dünyas? which boasts a million dollar view across the bay.
WHERE TO STAY:
Princess Hotel, Büyükada: 0 216 382 16 28
Hotel Splendid Palace, Büyükada: 0 216 382 69 50
Saydam Planet Hotel, Büyükada: 0 216 382 26 70
Panorama Hotel, Büyükada: 0 216 382 30 30
Merit Halki Palace, Heybeliada: 0 216 351 00 25
HOW TO GET THERE
?DO ferries leave for the islands from Kabata?, Kad?köy and Bostanc?. The first ferry from Kabata? on weekdays leaves at 6:50 a.m. The last back from Büyükada to Kabata? is at 7:35 p.m.
03 May 2009, Sunday
PAT YALE ?STANBUL
zaman.com