The Adalar islands' beautiful but decaying palaces and mosques give a look into Istanbul's cosmopolitan past and a calm getaway from the hectic city.
Seagulls circled Istanbul's Galata Tower while foghorns blared over the Bosphorus. As commuters rushed through turnstiles at Kabataş ferry port in the morning, simitsellers fared well.
The sun was beaming, but the January waves shook the yellow, white, and black vapur that links Istanbul's many European and Asian neighborhoods as it entered the Sea of Marmara.
Leaving Kadıköy and Fenerbahçe, I headed to Adalar, a group of nine islands with just four inhabited. I could see them through the spray-battered windows.
Byzantine Emperors and Ottoman Sultans exiled troublemakers and political opponents to Adalar, the "Princes' Islands". The Ottoman Empire's Greek and Armenian populations' final refuge was here, and today, the car-free islands, an hour by public boat from Istanbul, give a look into Istanbul's cosmopolitan history and a green retreat from Europe's biggest metropolis.
"For places of such sea-swept brilliance and dappled light, which look from Istanbul's ferries like sunning otters, the Princes' Islands have a very dark history," writes historian Bettany Hughes in Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities. "Princes were blinded, tortured, and imprisoned. What is now a thrilling boat excursion to the islands was once painful."
Although the practice of removing an exile's eyes before departure has since ended, my guide, Özge Acar from Istanbul Tour Studio, stated that the archipelago has become a site of self-imposed exile.
To visit Adalar
Istanbul has many ferry ports to Adalar, notably Eminönü and Kabataş on the European side and Bostanci (the shortest crossing of Asia). IstanbulKart ferries cost 45 Turkish Lira (approximately £1) per trip. Adalar's electric taxis and buses need the IstanbulKart, a prepaid travel card.
You can visit one or two islands in a day, but if you can, stay in Büyükada for a few nights and island hop.
She added Leon Trotsky, hounded by Soviet assassins in the 1930s, took safety in Adalar, and legions of authors and artists, like Istanbul novelist Orhan Pamuk, whose family had a property here, have drawn inspiration from the islands. Acar took a self-imposed exile, spending months on Kınalıada, Adalar's smallest populated island, during the epidemic.
"On Kınalıada, only 500 people live in winter," she stated as we passed the 1.3 sq km island. "I went into voluntary exile to avoid Istanbul. There are only five or six ferries a day, so you see the same folks and hear their tales."
Acar, a tour guide and epigraphist with extensive understanding of ancient languages, listed the four inhabited islands' current Turkish and Greek names. The smallest to biggest are Kınalıada (Greek: "Proti" meaning first), Burgazada (Antigoni), Heybeliada (Halki), and Büyükada (Prinkipo).
According to Acar, "Many of the people who traditionally lived on the islands are from Istanbul's minority groups," preserving the islands' Byzantine character when the Ottomans took Constantinople in 1453. "Especially Greeks and Armenians. Many elderly families from the cosmopolitan Ottoman Empire's top echelons still live here."
The Ottoman Empire, which absorbed hundreds of tribes and nations from the Balkans to North Africa, embraced multiculturalism. Many Muslims and Christians were exchanged between the fledgling Turkish Republic and neighboring nations like Greece when the empire collapsed following World War One.
However, Greeks and Armenians were first permitted to live in Istanbul and on Adalar. Through emigration, assimilation, and persecution and pogroms, Adalar's Greek population declined in the 20th century, although some survive as Ottoman remnants.
The islanders are proud of their emotional connection to the past. They feel privileged to have had no interruptions to their tale
"There's an emotional connection to the past and the islanders are proud of this," said Acar, describing how the island's difficult history has created a fiercely independent identity. "They feel privileged to have had no interruption to their tale.
We docked at Heybeliada (Turkish for "saddlebag" due to its twin hills), the second-largest island in the archipelago, where Ottoman-style houses overshadowed wide, tree-lined boulevards and restaurants lined the harbor in Greek Orthodox blue and white. The islands are car-free save for police cars, so we used an electric golf buggy that served as a taxi for the uphill journey to Hagia Triada, a 9th-century monastery.
The Orthodox Christian monastery's courtyard had a Turkish flag, and Meletios Stefanatos, a priest in swirling black robes, greeted us in the entry hall. He showed us a library full of dusty religious literature and classic epics like the Iliad.
"The majority of people on Heybeliada are now Muslim," he added, pointing to a church full with 1,000-year-old Byzantine icons. "But there are small groups of Armenian Christians, and maybe 30 or 40 Greek Christians."
Athens-born Stefanatos has resided on the island for four years. He said the Theological School of Halki, created in the monastery in 1844, closed in 1971 due to Turkey-Greece tensions.
"But the islanders are so friendly, and we have huge numbers of Turkish people visiting the monastery from the mainland," he added, adding that they may pray but not teach. "The issue isn't Muslims and Christians or Turks and Greeks. Given our long history together, it's a political issue."
We returned down the hill across a beautiful sandy beach to the harbor in time to take the next boat to Büyükada. Ten minutes later, we arrived to "The Big Island" with Greek-style coastal tavernas.
The islands are locked in a time warp, and many Adalar restaurants, hotels, and cafés are decorated in Greek blue and white. Acar noted that islands use their ancestry to stand out, even if few are Greek Orthodox Christians, to attract mainland Turkish visitors. We took an electric bus for an island tour after lunch at a Mediterranean-style Greek taverna with hummus and veggie kebabs.
"Imagine trying to keep this kind of quiet island next to a city with a population of [16 million]," Acar commented as we got off the bus and climbed up a lonely road to an ancient Armenian church on the cliffs. "I admire the effort. The €6m and €7m mansion owners can't bring their BMWs and expensive automobiles. People must acquire the island's culture."
No automobiles are permitted (and without car ferries, bringing cars here would be logistically difficult), instead inhabitants ride electric scooters and golf buggies while visitors hire bikes, use the electric bus, or walk. Electric transportation is a pleasant improvement from horse-drawn carts when I visited in 2016. (The local government outlawed horse carriages in 2020 and replaced them with electric cars due to unhygienic circumstances.)
Even though the islands are well linked to the mainland (for foot travelers, who pay 45 Turkish Lira, or more than £1, for the voyage), Adalar has remained remarkably green. We climbed through woodlands and down to sandy beaches in Büyükada, past old Ottoman prince summer homes and meandering in the shadows of minarets. Visitors from the mainland love this vegetation for the pure air and environment.
We caught an electric bus again and waited for the next boat to the mainland in the beautiful 19th-century terminal beside the harbor. "If you only have a few days in Istanbul, I wouldn't recommend a trip to Adalar because it's at least an hour there and back," said another local tour guide, Gulperi Parlak, before my trip. "Go to Istanbul if you have more time. Island life is ideal in summer. Locals love sandy beaches and sunlight."
Locals advise taking a leisurely tour to the islands to enjoy the landscape and cosmopolitan atmosphere.
He cautioned, "You'll feel weird when we get on the Marmaray line [a commuter rail line in Istanbul] after spending all day on the islands," as the ship left. She was correct. The ship dropped us off at rush hour amid Istanbul's pandemonium, where we battled to board the Asian-European train route. I yearned for another Adalar exile day.