Sometimes Istanbul looks like this.
Tuesday of this week was a national holiday (Children’s Day!) so some friends and I took a short hike from campus down to the Black Sea for a celebratory picnic. And I have half-days of school on Wednesdays, so my roommate and I took the ferry across the Bosphorus to Anadolu Kavaği. From the top of the small mountain there, you can stand next to the ruins of a Byzantine castle and look down to where the Bosphorus opens up into the Black Sea- the Sympleglades, where Jason and the Argonauts passed through on their way to the Golden Fleece (bottom photo). The story goes that Phineas warned Jason that the rocks here, the narrowest part of the Bosphorus, would clash together and destroy their ship. So as they approached, Jason let a dove fly between the cliffs. The rocks slid together, just clipping the dove’s tail-feathers. When Jason and the Argonauts sailed through, like for the dove, the rocks once again crashed together, only grazing the back of the ship, and letting them pass relatively unharmed.
Mythology aside, I’m pretty sure I’m in love with the Bosphorus.