Tweet
WALKING Ä°STANBUL'S LAND WALLS: FROM THE SEVEN TOWERS TO PANORAMA 1453
Today's Zaman
Oct 29 2012
Turkey
Arguably one of the greatest fortifications ever built, and without
doubt the most successful, the land walls of Constantinople, today's
Ä°stanbul, repelled all foreign foes for more than 1,000 years.
Completed in 413, the walls stretched some six kilometers from the
Sea of Marmara to the banks of the Golden Horn, a near impregnable
barrier behind which the city could breathe relatively easily,
whilst outside the besieging hordes of the likes of Attila the Hun,
the Avars and Persians, the Arab armies of Islam, Bulgars and Russians
raged in exasperation. Cutting off the city from the rolling hills of
Thrace to the west, the land walls were linked at either end by some 16
kilometers of sea walls, which ran right around the peninsula on which
Constantinople, capital of the Christian Byzantine Empire, was built.
By the time the Ottoman Turks rolled up at the gates in 1453,
Constantinople was a shadow of its former self, its population
down from a height of half a million to around 50,000, a struggling
city-state rather than an imperial capital. Up against an empire that
was very much in the ascendency, that of the Ottoman Turks, wielding
an army of up to 200,000 led by the redoubtable Mehmet II, the fall
of the city was inevitable -- not least because advances in technology
enabled the Ottomans to batter the walls with gunpowder-powered cannon
shot. Even so, it took Mehmet almost two months to break down the
resistance of the 8,000 defenders, a victory which earned the young
sultan the sobriquet "Fatih" or "Conqueror."
Exploring the walls today
Remarkably, the land walls are still in impressively good shape today,
a testament to the men who built and rebuilt them over the centuries,
and a walk along them is one of the most satisfying outings in this
great city, particularly if you are the kind of person who likes to
get off the beaten track and keep moderately fit in the process.
Whilst it's easy enough to walk the length of the walls in a day,
or even a few hours, if you want to make the most of the sights along
the way it's well worth considering spreading your explorations over
a couple of days.
The most straightforward way to reach the southern end of the walls
is to take the regular banliyö (suburban) train from Sirkeci station
to the Yedikule stop. To get a flavor of the history and cosmopolitan
nature of this neighborhood, head right (east) from the station and
cut north up Halit Efendi Sokak to a building locals will know best
as the Ä°mrahor Camii.
Now sadly a mere shell, this was once one of the most important
Byzantine monastic complexes in Constantinople, and the church at its
heart, that of St. John Stoudios, is the oldest extant in the city
(463). Entry is currently not possible, but you can admire it from
the outside.
Just north is the 18th-century Greek Orthodox church of St.
Constantine, said to contain a holy relic in the form of an arm of the
Emperor Constantine himself. To the south, back near the railway line,
a skeletal metal tower heralds a church built in the 19th century
for Italian Catholics but now used by Syrian Orthodox Christians who
migrated to Ä°stanbul from the Mardin region in the 1980s and 1990s.
>>From here, take the underpass beneath the railway and descend some
steps which are actually built into the line of the Byzantine sea
walls. Here there is a fine octagonal tower complete with a Greek
inscription and, next to it, some tumbled gravestones inscribed with
a script that will be unfamiliar to many: Armenian. Tucked into the
shadow of the sea walls here is a 19th-century Armenian Apostolic
church, that of St. Hovhannes.
>>From the Marble Tower to the Seven Towers
>>From just east of the church, cross busy Kennedy Caddesi by the
pedestrian bridge and stroll for a kilometer along the shores of
the Sea of Marmara to the southern terminus of the land walls, the
Marble Tower.
A kind of imperial pavilion as well as a defensive tower at the
juncture of the sea and land walls, a peep inside the half-collapsed
tower reveals cisterns that once provided the garrison with water.
Today, one of the wall niches is home to a vagrant, so be careful
not to disturb his slumbers. Now re-cross Kennedy Caddesi at the
pedestrian lights and join the outside of the land walls proper,
which tower impressively above you, just inside a pleasant park.
The first point of interest is a gateway, known as the Gate of Christ
after the XP monogram carved in relief over the arched entrance.
Exiting the park, continue along the main road just west of the
wall, past a gas station, before cutting east again, passing a Muslim
cemetery, to another gate in the wall, Yedikule Kapı. Before entering
the portal you'll notice a wide trench stretching away both to the
south and north. This was once a moat, some 20 meters wide by 10 deep,
the first of a triple line of defense. After a major quake in 447
the wall had to be rebuilt in a hurry, and at the same time the moat
and an outer wall, erected between the moat and the original wall,
were constructed. Today the moat is home to lovingly tended market
gardens whose produce, from spinach to squash, eggplants to potatoes,
is for sale from small stalls along the line of the walls.
Enter the gateway and swing south to the Yedikule Muzesi (Seven Towers
Museum) fortification (open daily except Mondays; 9 a.m.-6 p.m.;
TL 10). This massive and fascinating structure has evolved over the
centuries to take the form you see today. Originally it was just the
so-called Golden Gate, a three-arched ceremonial gateway through which
emperors approached the city after a successful military campaign.
Erected as a free-standing structure in the reign of Theodosius
I in 390, it was incorporated into the line of the land walls in
413. Then, following the capture of the city by Mehmet II in 1453,
a fortress was made by adding three towers, linked by curtain walls,
to the line of the land walls, which themselves included four towers,
thus giving rise to its Turkish name.
Ascend the southern of the twin towers which once flanked the Golden
Gate (watch your footing, it's dark and the steps uneven) for great
views down to the Sea of Marmara and along the line of the walls.
Unfortunately, the four bronze elephants pulling a chariot which
adorned the triumphal gateway in the Byzantine period are long gone.
Gateways, cemeteries and holy waters
If you're in need of a drink, the Son Durak (Last Stop), a
couple of hundred meters west of Yedikule Kapı, is one of those
salt-of-the-earth cayhanes where you can still get a refreshing
glass of tea for half a lira. Back outside the gateway, turn north
and follow a well-preserved stretch of wall towards Belgrat Kapı
(Belgrade Gate). Here you get a real impression of the strength of
the fortification, especially if you scramble down into the market
gardens filling the moat and stare up at the walls towering above
you -- first the outer wall, which was some eight meters tall and
two-and-a-half thick, and then, rearing impressively behind it,
the inner wall, a more substantial 12 meters high by five meters thick.
Continuing north on the sidewalk beside the moat, the drone of traffic
on the busy highway paralleling the line of the walls ever present,
you reach Belgrat Kapı. The wall here is well preserved, and you can
cross the bridge across the moat, walk through the gateways through
both the outer and inner walls and inside ascend steps up to the
parapet walkway and, further up, to the towers flanking the entryway.
There were over 90 such towers on the line of the inner wall and the
same again on the outer wall, many of which have survived.
The next gate along is the well-preserved Silivri Kapı, known as
the Gate of the Spring in Byzantine times. Here it's worth deviating
from the line of the walls and heading into the beautifully maintained
and forested cemeteries west of the highway. Follow the signs for the
Gasilhane (the washing place for Muslim burials) and turn right past
an Ottoman-era ceÅ~_me (spring), then left between Muslim cemeteries
to the shrine-church of Zoodochus Pege, set between Armenian and
Greek Orthodox burial grounds.
There has been a shrine here since the early Byzantine period, built
above an ayazma or holy spring, though the present church dates back
only to 1833. It's a beautifully maintained Greek Orthodox structure,
very much in the neoclassical style, with a lovely courtyard, the
floor of which comprises old tombstones. The main point of interest,
however, is the sacred spring, reached by steps from the courtyard.
The fish that swim lazily in the subterranean waters are said to be
descended from miraculous fish of legend. Apparently a Greek monk,
told that Constantinople had just fallen to the Turks, retorted that
that was just as likely as the fish he was frying up for lunch coming
back to life. At his words, the fish apparently leapt from the pan
and into the spring, where they swam around quite happily.
There is a cafe here, as the shrine receives a fair few pilgrims
from Greece who stock up on the holy waters, but it's better to head
back to the line of walls and continue north to Mevlana Kapı. This
well-preserved gateway, named after a Mevlevi dervish lodge which
once existed outside the walls here, leads into a traditional quarter
of the old city and, a couple of hundred or so meters in, two cheap
and cheerful lunch stops. On the right, Ozer KardeÅ~_ler dishes up
excellent steam tray (sulu yemek) food to local workers for around TL 4
a portion, whilst opposite Mevlana Kapı Merkezefendi Köftecisi offers
tender grilled meatballs with white bean salad for not that much more.
Assuming you've visited all the places mentioned here you'll likely
have walked around 10 kilometers, so by the time you reach the next
stop, the Panorama 1453 Museum, just short of the famous Topkapı
gateway, you might be ready to hop on the T1 tram at the handy Topkapı
stop and head back to the city center. Next up I'll describe walking
the walls from the 1453 museum, which pays homage to the Ottoman
capture of the city on May 29 of that year, to the wall's end on the
shores of the Golden Horn.
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-296507-walking-istanbuls-land-walls-from-the-seven-towers-to-panorama-1453.html
Today's Zaman
Oct 29 2012
Turkey
Arguably one of the greatest fortifications ever built, and without
doubt the most successful, the land walls of Constantinople, today's
Ä°stanbul, repelled all foreign foes for more than 1,000 years.
Completed in 413, the walls stretched some six kilometers from the
Sea of Marmara to the banks of the Golden Horn, a near impregnable
barrier behind which the city could breathe relatively easily,
whilst outside the besieging hordes of the likes of Attila the Hun,
the Avars and Persians, the Arab armies of Islam, Bulgars and Russians
raged in exasperation. Cutting off the city from the rolling hills of
Thrace to the west, the land walls were linked at either end by some 16
kilometers of sea walls, which ran right around the peninsula on which
Constantinople, capital of the Christian Byzantine Empire, was built.
By the time the Ottoman Turks rolled up at the gates in 1453,
Constantinople was a shadow of its former self, its population
down from a height of half a million to around 50,000, a struggling
city-state rather than an imperial capital. Up against an empire that
was very much in the ascendency, that of the Ottoman Turks, wielding
an army of up to 200,000 led by the redoubtable Mehmet II, the fall
of the city was inevitable -- not least because advances in technology
enabled the Ottomans to batter the walls with gunpowder-powered cannon
shot. Even so, it took Mehmet almost two months to break down the
resistance of the 8,000 defenders, a victory which earned the young
sultan the sobriquet "Fatih" or "Conqueror."
Exploring the walls today
Remarkably, the land walls are still in impressively good shape today,
a testament to the men who built and rebuilt them over the centuries,
and a walk along them is one of the most satisfying outings in this
great city, particularly if you are the kind of person who likes to
get off the beaten track and keep moderately fit in the process.
Whilst it's easy enough to walk the length of the walls in a day,
or even a few hours, if you want to make the most of the sights along
the way it's well worth considering spreading your explorations over
a couple of days.
The most straightforward way to reach the southern end of the walls
is to take the regular banliyö (suburban) train from Sirkeci station
to the Yedikule stop. To get a flavor of the history and cosmopolitan
nature of this neighborhood, head right (east) from the station and
cut north up Halit Efendi Sokak to a building locals will know best
as the Ä°mrahor Camii.
Now sadly a mere shell, this was once one of the most important
Byzantine monastic complexes in Constantinople, and the church at its
heart, that of St. John Stoudios, is the oldest extant in the city
(463). Entry is currently not possible, but you can admire it from
the outside.
Just north is the 18th-century Greek Orthodox church of St.
Constantine, said to contain a holy relic in the form of an arm of the
Emperor Constantine himself. To the south, back near the railway line,
a skeletal metal tower heralds a church built in the 19th century
for Italian Catholics but now used by Syrian Orthodox Christians who
migrated to Ä°stanbul from the Mardin region in the 1980s and 1990s.
>>From here, take the underpass beneath the railway and descend some
steps which are actually built into the line of the Byzantine sea
walls. Here there is a fine octagonal tower complete with a Greek
inscription and, next to it, some tumbled gravestones inscribed with
a script that will be unfamiliar to many: Armenian. Tucked into the
shadow of the sea walls here is a 19th-century Armenian Apostolic
church, that of St. Hovhannes.
>>From the Marble Tower to the Seven Towers
>>From just east of the church, cross busy Kennedy Caddesi by the
pedestrian bridge and stroll for a kilometer along the shores of
the Sea of Marmara to the southern terminus of the land walls, the
Marble Tower.
A kind of imperial pavilion as well as a defensive tower at the
juncture of the sea and land walls, a peep inside the half-collapsed
tower reveals cisterns that once provided the garrison with water.
Today, one of the wall niches is home to a vagrant, so be careful
not to disturb his slumbers. Now re-cross Kennedy Caddesi at the
pedestrian lights and join the outside of the land walls proper,
which tower impressively above you, just inside a pleasant park.
The first point of interest is a gateway, known as the Gate of Christ
after the XP monogram carved in relief over the arched entrance.
Exiting the park, continue along the main road just west of the
wall, past a gas station, before cutting east again, passing a Muslim
cemetery, to another gate in the wall, Yedikule Kapı. Before entering
the portal you'll notice a wide trench stretching away both to the
south and north. This was once a moat, some 20 meters wide by 10 deep,
the first of a triple line of defense. After a major quake in 447
the wall had to be rebuilt in a hurry, and at the same time the moat
and an outer wall, erected between the moat and the original wall,
were constructed. Today the moat is home to lovingly tended market
gardens whose produce, from spinach to squash, eggplants to potatoes,
is for sale from small stalls along the line of the walls.
Enter the gateway and swing south to the Yedikule Muzesi (Seven Towers
Museum) fortification (open daily except Mondays; 9 a.m.-6 p.m.;
TL 10). This massive and fascinating structure has evolved over the
centuries to take the form you see today. Originally it was just the
so-called Golden Gate, a three-arched ceremonial gateway through which
emperors approached the city after a successful military campaign.
Erected as a free-standing structure in the reign of Theodosius
I in 390, it was incorporated into the line of the land walls in
413. Then, following the capture of the city by Mehmet II in 1453,
a fortress was made by adding three towers, linked by curtain walls,
to the line of the land walls, which themselves included four towers,
thus giving rise to its Turkish name.
Ascend the southern of the twin towers which once flanked the Golden
Gate (watch your footing, it's dark and the steps uneven) for great
views down to the Sea of Marmara and along the line of the walls.
Unfortunately, the four bronze elephants pulling a chariot which
adorned the triumphal gateway in the Byzantine period are long gone.
Gateways, cemeteries and holy waters
If you're in need of a drink, the Son Durak (Last Stop), a
couple of hundred meters west of Yedikule Kapı, is one of those
salt-of-the-earth cayhanes where you can still get a refreshing
glass of tea for half a lira. Back outside the gateway, turn north
and follow a well-preserved stretch of wall towards Belgrat Kapı
(Belgrade Gate). Here you get a real impression of the strength of
the fortification, especially if you scramble down into the market
gardens filling the moat and stare up at the walls towering above
you -- first the outer wall, which was some eight meters tall and
two-and-a-half thick, and then, rearing impressively behind it,
the inner wall, a more substantial 12 meters high by five meters thick.
Continuing north on the sidewalk beside the moat, the drone of traffic
on the busy highway paralleling the line of the walls ever present,
you reach Belgrat Kapı. The wall here is well preserved, and you can
cross the bridge across the moat, walk through the gateways through
both the outer and inner walls and inside ascend steps up to the
parapet walkway and, further up, to the towers flanking the entryway.
There were over 90 such towers on the line of the inner wall and the
same again on the outer wall, many of which have survived.
The next gate along is the well-preserved Silivri Kapı, known as
the Gate of the Spring in Byzantine times. Here it's worth deviating
from the line of the walls and heading into the beautifully maintained
and forested cemeteries west of the highway. Follow the signs for the
Gasilhane (the washing place for Muslim burials) and turn right past
an Ottoman-era ceÅ~_me (spring), then left between Muslim cemeteries
to the shrine-church of Zoodochus Pege, set between Armenian and
Greek Orthodox burial grounds.
There has been a shrine here since the early Byzantine period, built
above an ayazma or holy spring, though the present church dates back
only to 1833. It's a beautifully maintained Greek Orthodox structure,
very much in the neoclassical style, with a lovely courtyard, the
floor of which comprises old tombstones. The main point of interest,
however, is the sacred spring, reached by steps from the courtyard.
The fish that swim lazily in the subterranean waters are said to be
descended from miraculous fish of legend. Apparently a Greek monk,
told that Constantinople had just fallen to the Turks, retorted that
that was just as likely as the fish he was frying up for lunch coming
back to life. At his words, the fish apparently leapt from the pan
and into the spring, where they swam around quite happily.
There is a cafe here, as the shrine receives a fair few pilgrims
from Greece who stock up on the holy waters, but it's better to head
back to the line of walls and continue north to Mevlana Kapı. This
well-preserved gateway, named after a Mevlevi dervish lodge which
once existed outside the walls here, leads into a traditional quarter
of the old city and, a couple of hundred or so meters in, two cheap
and cheerful lunch stops. On the right, Ozer KardeÅ~_ler dishes up
excellent steam tray (sulu yemek) food to local workers for around TL 4
a portion, whilst opposite Mevlana Kapı Merkezefendi Köftecisi offers
tender grilled meatballs with white bean salad for not that much more.
Assuming you've visited all the places mentioned here you'll likely
have walked around 10 kilometers, so by the time you reach the next
stop, the Panorama 1453 Museum, just short of the famous Topkapı
gateway, you might be ready to hop on the T1 tram at the handy Topkapı
stop and head back to the city center. Next up I'll describe walking
the walls from the 1453 museum, which pays homage to the Ottoman
capture of the city on May 29 of that year, to the wall's end on the
shores of the Golden Horn.
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-296507-walking-istanbuls-land-walls-from-the-seven-towers-to-panorama-1453.html