All Along the Watchtower...

Today might have been my favorite day in Istanbul so far. Professor Shields took us by train to the start of the famous walls of Istanbul - walls that still surround all of Sultanahmet, Eminonu, and Fatih districts. Here's a map of the walls and what we walked from the bottom of the map up- 3.77 miles.

For the most part, the walls were in good condition considering they've been around since 408 a.d. Even more impressive is that we could still walk the entire width of the Golden Horn with the walls in sight - or even with us trekking on top of them. We started with a seven-tower fort called the Yedikule - it was really, really cool - kind of like being at the Tower of London without all the annoying signs, modern additions, cameras, and tourists - we were literally the only ones there. The fort was huge - this is a picture of a minaret in the middle of the courtyard with one of the seven towers in the background:



We could walk up and down the watchtowers and along the walls with no one watching us - the policy for the ruins seemed to be "explore at your own risk". Edward took a few risks himself by rock climbing onto some of the higher ledges while Yekta, Zoe, Kristina and I stayed below (this was at the top of a five story tower:


And here's another of some weird people I don't really know trying to spell Turks on top of the castle keep:



After the fort, we started walking along the walls themselves. Along some stretches, the walls had been reconstructed to look as they did during the Byzantine period; in other parts, the walls were decrepit and home to homeless men and cats. We walked for a long time, stopping to get lunch, then got to a really cool restored part of the wall - here's Edward, Emily, Zoe and I on it:



We climbed onto what must've been a five or six story watchtower with a hollow middle - in other words, there was a sheer drop of 60 feet on either side of the tower. I was more terrified than I think I've ever been. We were foolish enough to climb onto the nooks of the wall for the sake of a good picture - my legs were shaking the whole time:

We kept walking and hit up on another huge watchtower which offered probably the best view of the city. I took three pictures and molded them into a panorama shot just to capture the view:


On the middle in the background is Sultanahmet, home to the Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Yeni Camii, Topkapi Palace, Istanbul University, Beyazit tower, and more. On the right in the foreground is the wall of the tower and another mosque. In the background is the Sea of Marmara. On the left in the foreground is the wall, in the background are Galata, Istanbul's business sector, and the Golden Horn. In the far back you can get a glimpse of Asia.

Another picture on the wall (notice the lack of handlebars):


And us trying to climb down the wall, with Clayton (brown shirt) singing for inspiration:


Part of the reason I liked walking along the walls so much is that it took us into very different types of neighborhoods - we definitely traveled through middle and lower class neighborhoods the entire way. Sections of the wall along the nicer neighborhoods were restored, while the wall was neglected and gratiffitied along the lower income sections, in some areas serving as places to dump and burn stuff:


Another part of the reason I loved going along the walls was that we got to explore these ruins that very few tourists visit and fewer walk. It was really exciting to try to figure out how to get from one section to the next without having to backtrack. Here's a picture of Kristina and Edward trekking on part of the wall:



We finally got to the end of the walls at around 4:45 - six hours and forty five minutes after we started. Needless to say, the walls made quite an impression.

Finally, we saw the grave of the oldest person in the world:


And that's that for now. More later this week on last weekend's epic adventure to Bursa!