“The Taste of the Bosphorus” with grilled fish and fried mussels; Anadolu Kavağı…

Anadolu Kavağı, which is the entrance gate of the Bosphorus from the Black Sea, maintains its nostalgic fishing village character with its unchanging appearance for years. The village, which is one of the windpipes of Istanbul and famous for its fish restaurants, is one of the travel destinations preferred by those who want to bid farewell to Istanbul’s summer and enjoy the warm days in autumn during the bluefish season of September and October.

If you want to go to Anadolu Kavağı, which is accessible by ferry service both by land and by sea, and enjoy grilled fish by the sea, autumn is the best time for such a trip.

On summer days, you can eat the fish you ordered on the beach or on the scenic windows or terraces of two or three-storey restaurants and eateries, amidst the cool but not chilly sea-scented breezes, and on the other hand, you can have a peaceful, weekday or weekend getaway by breathing the iodine, oxygen-rich sea-scented air accompanied by a pleasing view.

Those who come to Kavaklar to eat fish either come by city line ferries departing from Eminönü pier, stopping at the pier of the Bosphorus, or they prefer the ferries departing from Sarıyer. Since the arrival and departure times of the passengers using this type of transportation depend on the flights, they get up and return as a group after the meal.

If you come to Anadolu Kavağı with your private vehicle, where bus services are also available, there are many stops on the way and you can enjoy the scenic route and sit for as long as you want, regardless of the departure times. As you approach Anadolu Kavağı, you can see the residential area gathered around the ferry port and the Yoros Castle, built by the Genoese to control the strait on the hill.

You enter the village as soon as you get off the narrow, slightly hilly street, where there are a few wooden houses that have been restored and painted like a cream cake, and park your car wherever you find convenient. It doesn’t matter how long you stay, whether it’s one hour or five hours, the parking attendants charge three million TL in advance for entry and exit. It’s time to choose a table in a place with a view.

While the fish restaurants on the beach are preferred with their open and closed sections, the restaurants located further back allow you to watch the attractive view with their second and third floors or terraces. For more economical meals, there are restaurants serving in the streets or in the gardens. They show the fish types and prices on the signs they hang at the entrances.

For those who want to eat only clean mussels taken from the entrance of the Bosphorus, it is common to see people making fried mussels, and there are also tea gardens.

In the middle of Anadolu Kavağı, there are grand plane trees, around it there are vendors who fry a kind of dough called crepe on hot hair and serve it with various sweet sauces, ice cream and kiosks, souvenir sellers such as trinkets, and lazy cats who are waiting for the fishermen and who are not tired of eating fish, stand out.

In the calm atmosphere of Anadolu Kavağı, which becomes lively with ferry passengers approaching the pier, boats tied to the shore complete the view of the fishing village, creating colorful compositions for art lovers to paint and take photographs. There is also the opportunity to fish with a fishing rod and cane by parking your car right next to the beach.

Especially in May, the fish that go to the Black Sea to lay eggs and enter the Bosphorus to go to Marmara as of September 1, when the fish ban ends, are fattened by feeding on the low-salt water of the Black Sea. They are caught with nets at the entrance of the Bosphorus and consumed fresh. Anadolu Kavağı restaurants also attract attention with their various ways of cooking fish.

Some restaurants have the fish selected from the counter where they are displayed, and some of them use a real coal fire, while others use a real coal fire. If you prefer to eat fish at Yosun Restaurant, which is located behind the ferry pier that the maritime company is restoring, you can try a large grilled bluefish served with chopped arugula salad, a few slices of tomato, cucumber, lettuce, kale, a salad without onion with lemon squeezed on top, two portions of pan-fried mussels with tarator, one portion also with tarator. You can order fried calamari and three glasses of beer.

Things to consider in restaurants with constantly changing customers: If you dream of sitting by the sea when choosing a table and even if all the tables are full, you can offer the chef to spend some time at one of the tables back until a table becomes vacant.

In case the fried mussels you serve at the restaurant arrive cold, you should warn them to make sure they are freshly fried. In the meantime, in order to avoid damaging your teeth, you should consider the possibility that even a few pearls may come out of the small but delicious mussels. Since some restaurants sell only one brand of draft beer, you should consider alternatives for your beverage choice.

Sometimes it is not possible to find local squid in most of the fish restaurants, so Italians import the squid from India in frozen ice cubes and sell it to the world under their own labels. Even though the ongoing dinner invitations of the restaurant greeters may affect your ability to move around comfortably during your short digestion walk after the meal, without looking at your swollen belly, you should not neglect your environmental tour.

YOROS CASTLE If you climb up to Yoros Castle, which is located on a hill overlooking the surroundings from the coast, you can watch the ships entering Istanbul from the Black Sea and the magnificent view of the Bosphorus. Yoros Castle, located at the tip of the hill, attracts attention with its architecture and coat of arms on its walls. Anadolu Kavağı, which was attacked by Bithynians, Goths and Russians, was also captured by the Genoese for a while.

Yoros Castle, built by the Genoese, dates back to 1190. It is also mentioned that there was a Turkish neighborhood of 25 houses within Yoros Castle, which was captured by the Byzantines and the Ottomans in the 14th century.

In the information given by Evliya Çelebi, it is stated that the black castle in the town of Kavak was conquered by Yıldırım Khan, repaired by Mehmed the Conqueror and soldiers were placed in it, and that its perimeter is 200 steps and its four sides are covered with chestnut forest.

YUSHA HILL; MOSQUE and TOMB

Yuşa Tepe is the closest and highest hill of the Bosphorus, one of the most popular places to visit near Anadolu Kavağı. The visiting hill, which is observed to be visited mostly by modernly dressed women, also impresses with its magnificent panorama overlooking the Bosphorus and the Black Sea from the same angle.

Yuşa Hill, which attracts more visitors than usual during the months of Ramadan, the eve of the holy days, holidays and on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, is filled with luxury vehicles. Visitors visit the Tomb of Prophet Joshua and the Mosque dating back to 1755 and pray. The very tall tomb surrounded by iron bars, located in the garden next to the mosque, attracts the attention of visitors.

Those concerned state that the exact location of the tomb, which was in ruins in previous years, was built 17 meters long because it is not clear, and they clarify that the belief that the person lying here was very tall, as is widely known, is wrong.

Among those who made various wishes and prayed, those who got their wishes come again later and fulfill their vows this time. They distribute candy and Turkish delight to other visitors, even though it is not compatible with the basic principles of Islam!!.

In the garden of the Mosque, which also attracts attention with its cleanliness and landscaping, there is a Tomb inscription, an ornate canopied fountain with a tap on each of its four sides, a cultural house, seating units, a cemetery with 27 graves, while at the entrance of Yuşa Hill there are various shops, stalls selling necessities such as religious books, rosaries, headscarves, and people making pancakes, meatballs, fish, and bread.!

(The religion of Islam does not find it right to turn mosques into shopping places and cemeteries into places for holidays and feasts.

The place where the people of Chalcedon made a sacrifice in the name of Daphne has been accepted as a sacred place since the early periods of history. Various civilizations have built shrines and temples here according to their own religions. One of them is known as the Zeus altar in the ancient times. During the Byzantine Period. Emperor 1 in the 6th century.

During the reign of Justinian, this altar was turned into a church. During the Ottoman period, a masjid was built on this hill by Grand Vizier Yirmisekiz Çelebizade Mehmet Sait Pasha (d. 1761) in 1169 (1755).

You can view Anadolu Kavağı’s pictures here.