On the Waterfront
WE CLAIM OUR USUAL SEATS ON THE OPEN UPPER DECK OF THE PUBLIC FERRY AS IT SLOWLY SWIVELS AWAY FROM A CHAOTIC PIER ON ISTANBUL’S HISTORIC PENINSULA. THE AIR PRACTICALLY THROBS WITH THE REEK OF OIL FUMES AND GRILLED MACKEREL.
Our boat ploughs away northward, heading up the Bosphorus, the 20-mile strait with one shore in Europe, the other in Asia, that both splices and binds this city where two continents meet. We churn past Karaköy, the neighborhood at the mouth of the strait on the European side, where a new cruise ship port is under development, onward past the neo-baroque sprawl of Dolmabahçe Palace, where the Ottoman sultans moved in the mid-19th century and helped bankrupt their empire with their marble-encrusted, chandelier-crammed extravagance.
The air is fresh now; the shores and hills on either side unfurl like movie tracking shots. Behind us, Istanbul’s trademark silhouette assembles in the magenta-stained sunset: the swelling domes and rocket-like minarets of the imperial mosques and their grand prototype, the Byzantine basilica of Hagia Sophia. Some giggling visitors toss bits of (sesame-coated bread rings) into the breeze for the squawking gulls to pounce on midair. Bigger public ferries, the majestic , steam by beneath their iconic yellow-sashed funnels; ahead, a tanker looms up, a gray Ukrainian mammoth bound for Odessa. The muezzins’ cries echo now from the Asian shore, as we sip tea from dainty tulip-shaped glasses. We pass more marble Ottoman palaces and wooden waterside mansions called , our ferry churning on beneath the sweeping spans of two Bosphorus bridges lit up blue, then
