Island-hopping

Islands-hopping on the public ferries

Being such a glorious morning, we thought we’d go island-hopping on Istanbul’s public ferries once more.

Google Maps wasn’t too helpful with the public transport schedules to the islands by ferry because it’s a little faster to go by underground then change to a ferry.

It did show a ferry-only option at 1000 but after breakfast, I managed to see another ferry-only option (with a connection at Kadikoy) at 0855.  We left the hotel promptly at 0820.  We managed to find an even earlier service to Kadikoy at 0835.

Over on the Asian side at Kadikoy, we had a 20 min walk-and-wait before a ferry came along around 0920 to take us to the Princes’ Islands. We skipped the first stop at Kinaliada as it looked quite small and hopped off at the second stop Burgazada.

This was a new stop for both of us.  The digital schedules at the port suggested that we could have 30 mins here (but later options were not yet showing).  This allowed us to take a short walk in both directions along the restaurant and commercial areas but not to the residential areas.

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At some stage Kim lost his transport card which we had freshly reloaded.  Fortunately, we were able to pay for his continuing ride on the ferry on my card.  The ride took us to Heybeliada which we had both visited before and then the island of Buyukada (and its main town Adalar) where we disembarked around 1110.

We did largely the same walk that I had done a number of times, to the right and then circling to the left before settling down for lunch in a nice restaurant overlooking the sea from an elevated position.

From here we could see the hordes of visitors disembarking from various ferries.  Oh, the humanity!  But they seem to disperse quite well into various parts of the island.

We took a return ferry at 1330 to the mainland, disembarking at Kabatas to take the funicular to Taksim where we walked down halfway on Istiklal pedestrian mall to Decathlon, the sports shop.

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Back on the mainland

In New Zealand, where nearly everything costs more, I make it a point of visiting Decathlon (and Uniqlo) while overseas.  Kim had hoped to buy some collared travel shirts but they didn’t have them.  We made a couple of token purchases before walking downhill to the tram to return to the hotel briefly around 1715.

When dinner time came, we walked uphill to behind Ayasofya for kumpir (baked potatoes) as I knew how much Kim liked potatoes.  The uphill walk nearly killed him but I think it was worth it in the end.

The wooden Ayasofya Mansions, which are probably short-term apartments looked so well built.  The wooden walls looked so perfect Kim assumed they would be plastic slabs (like in the USA) that looked like weatherboards.  But the touch test confirmed that these buildings were really wood.  He was very impressed by the workmanship.

In preparation for our visit to Northern Cyprus, I withdrew some more Turkish Liras.  My learnings so far is that Bank Ziraat and Halkbank appear to foreign cards free withdrawals, unlike the hefty fees that some others charge.  Unfortunately, some older ATMs from the same banks only offer a Turkish interface.

Googling things later, I learnt that Ziraat and Halkbank are in the same ATM alliance which also includes VakifBank, which may also give me free withdrawals. [Edit:  I got to try VakifBank but they do have a fee, even though it is much smaller than other banks.]  All good to know as my travel progresses. We settled indoors around 2000.