I always forget that you can get across the Sea of Marmara from İstanbul on the ferry from Eskihisar to Topçular. I suppose it’s just so far out in the eastern suburbs. Much easier, if you’re staying in Sultanahmet, just to go to Yenikapı and hop the Yalova or Bandırma boats. But today I was heading for İzmir and Eskihisar/Topçular turned out to be the Metro bus company’s favoured exit route.
Just as well because the sun was shining and it was so wonderful to be out on the water watching Eskihisar’s eski hisar (old castle) shrinking into a dot in the distance and watching families indulging their love of feeding the seagulls, the Turkish equivalent, I suppose, of feeding the ducks in the park when I was a kid. And, boy, did those gulls milk it for all it was worth, screeching and screaming, swooping and circling and oh so deftly catching those mouth-watering morsels of simit in mid-air. The children loved it, the dads loved it, I loved it. No matter that there were still many hours of dreary bus ride ahead of me that half-hour break on the water quite set me up for the journey.
