Posted on January - 25 - 2012
Escape up the Bosphorus
EASTERN PROMISE: The Bosphorus Bridge connects Europe with Asia in the ancient capital of Istanbul.
We wait on the edge of Istanbul for the number 150 to Garipce. The bus, when it comes, is an old one like from my childhood. And it complains constantly as we lurch through the folding hills above the Bosphorus. Occasionally the land parts and we glimpse the mercurial strait of wind-tossed water below, dividing Europe and Asia and coursing between Istanbul and the Black Sea.
For many tourists a day-trip out of heady Istanbul means island-hopping the Princes’ Islands. Instead my wife and I are weaving up the European shore of the Bosphorus.