After the Jewish museum we headed out for a two hour boat ride up the Straights. Since we had been eating non-stop, we decided to just skip lunch and head straight to the water front. The day was beautiful and sunny, the driver cranked up some good tunes and we sat on the upper deck and just enjoyed the sites. It was a wonderful, relaxing afternoon!
Dolmabahce Palace. Apparently Ataturk (founder of the Turkish Republic 1923) lived here in his final days. This is the palace where the Sultans moved the court when they left Topkapi Palace.
There were swimmers. They would run and jump off the concrete pier. The current would quickly carry them down toward the ladder where they would climb out. The water was pretty choppy and probably pretty cold. I was content to be on the boat not in the water. If they missed the ladder I don't know what they would have done, there was not a second ladder in sight and the current was strong enough that I doubt they could swim back to the ladder if they missed it.
We got to see a floatilla of protestors on the water going past us in the other direction. There must have been at least 75 small water craft like this one. We were told these were environmentalists. The sign says "Security before the disaster" according to Google translate, but I wouldn't take that translation with great confidence.
These were the old fortifications at a narrow place in the Straights. They came right after the second bridge that goes from the European side to the Asian side of the city. We asked a Turkish friend who was on the trip if he knew much about the walls. His response was "I wasn't that good in history" (ha!) With over a thousand years of history I think I would be a bit challenged to tell which Sultan built this structure too!
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