Along the City Walls

The next two weeks were especially difficult for me because of exams (following this post I had 2 exams worth 30% and 35% of my grade). This is a significant chunk considering finals at Emory are usually worth either this much or slightly more. At Boğaziçi there are fewer exams that count more. I don’t know how I like that. It certainly gives you less leeway to mess up. At any rate, the first time I had a reading quiz in my POLS 309 class, I spent 3 solid days reading for that class. I didn’t do anything fun for the entire weekend. I decided after that I will make a commitment to see at least one new part of the city every weekend. Otherwise, I will have spent all of my time indoors studying. I could just do that at Emory. There would be no point of even coming (except that they don’t offer the classes I am taking at Emory).

So this weekend with two exams the following week (weekend of March 28), I decided to go out on Saturday to see the city walls and the other cool stuff around it. The city walls are located all the way across town in Merter. I got off the subway and there they were, just as I expected. I had to choose which way to go (there were cool things to see in both directions) and I decided that I would go towards the Sea of Marmara and shoot for the Yediküle Fortress and the Pege Zoochious (sp?) (I will correct this post when I go look at my Istanbul guidebook…or maybe I will be too lazy and forget to look). After going to the wrong place, at least twice and spending two hours looking for it, I found this church (Balik kilise) or the Pege Zoochious. This site was neat because it was a church built around a spring that was supposed to have mystical powers. It was famous in Greek times as one of Artemis’ springs. Later, it was somehow associated with the Virgin Mary. The most famous legend about it is that before the invasion of Istanbul, a monk said that an invasion was as likely as this fish was to jump off of the frying pan and into the water. According to the story, right after he said that, the fish jumped into the water. The spring itself had fish in it and was literally inside the church. It was pretty neat. The church itself was also pretty. It had all kinds of decorations in the small sanctuary. It was definitely worth the visit.

Then, I kept walking along the city walls, which were also pretty neat. In the old moat, there are people who are now farming. Many of the towers and infrastructure for it are still intact. The fortress is actually built into the city walls, as it was a part of the security system. This fortress was also the main receiving area for people into Istanbul during parts of its history. A sultan was also executed inside its walls, so there was a lot of history inside it. However, just like with many fortresses, there isn’t much left. I got to see the dungeon, but otherwise climbed to the top to enjoy the view of both the Marmara Sea and the city. Then, I came back home and studied for the rest of the weekend. At least I got out to see things though!