What you can see in Turkey’s Bosphorus Tour

​What is so popular about the Bosphorus Tour? There are so many boat cruise that offers beautiful landmarks sights as the boat cruise along. One of the most memorable cruise that I had is probably the Milford Sound Cruise in New Zealand back in 2012. We passed the waterfall and the boat was able to get so close to the waterfall we could get wet aboard. Or the beautiful Halong Bay Cruise that offers view of green jewel emerges from the Sea.

Landmark wise, Bosphorus Tour does not offer epic landscapes. We passed the strait on a calm sea with the city and beautiful historic building on both right and left side. But the magnetic thing about Bosphorus cruise ship is the fact that when we look at our left (if we depart from the same side as Dolmabahce Palace) and our right, we literally look at a different continent. Bosphorus strait devides Europe and Asian continent (on its west and east part), and as a channel between Black sea (north) and Marmara Sea (on the south). The length of this strait is about 30 kilometers.This fact, combines with good weather and beautiful historic building were probably the good part about Bosphorus Tour.

That day we picked a Bosphorus Cruise combined with a visit to Golden Horn, and a visit to Pierre Loti Hill, where we can oversee the beautiful landscape of the Golden Horn. Golden Horn is a waterway that flows to Bosphorus. In the Pierre Loti Hill, we can capture the beautiful landmark from the heights. It can be reached using Teleferik (Cable Car), or we can go by car.

Since the cruise circling about the Bosphorus strait, I will present the point of interest based on what I saw on the European continent side (Left side), and the Asian Continent (Right side). Although, during the cruise I changed sideways as the boat made a turn.
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Dolmabahce Palace
This palace was built in 19th century, and acted as administrative center during the Ottoman Empire (1856 to 1922). It is situated right next to Bosphorus Strait, as Ottoman fleet used to anchor in that site. Dolmabahce means Filled-in Garden (Dolma means filled, and Bahce means Garden). There were small gardens built forming a garden as it is now today.

Ciragan Palace
Çırağan Sarayı  or Ciragan Palace was once an Ottoman Palace, and now a 5-stars Hotel Kempinski. The renovation of its place began in 1989. The Sultan Room is charged EUR 30,000 per night. I don’t even want to comment on that.

Galatasaray Islet
This is small island in Bosphorus Strait housing 6 restaurants and and two swimming pools. One can reach the island using ferry. It is famous for being a small island between two continents. The operations in the island is Galatasaray Sports Club. The famous club in the island is Suada Club.

Rumeli Fortress (Rumelihisari)
The fortress or castle was built 1451 to control the sea traffic in Bosphorus Strait. The fortress was restored in 1950s and now it is functioning as museum and open-air theater

Kucuksu Kasri
Kucuksu Kasri (Kucuksu Palace) was used to be a stay for Ottoman Sultan during the summer.

There are not many things to see on the Asian side, except the housing complex and holiday home that beautifully marching alongside of the strait. After the tour in Bosphorus Strait, we were taken to the Pierre Loti Hill. The view on the Golden Horn was so beautiful.

Although it was such a short sightseeing with no stops on each point of interest, but it was such a great beginning of my trip, especially after days of flight. We planned to explore each point of interest the day afterwards.