We took the new tram to Eyup, what a lovely journey. I was a little distracted, but could enjoy the slow glide on the edge of the water, and sometimes over the water itself. Until the tram line opened all of this had been behind scaffolding and construction barriers, so though we’d walked past many times it was the first time we’d seen it open to the Golden Horn.
We got off at Eyup, a stunning little station except for a vast and hideous structure on the opposite shore, quite appalling, like something in Bahria Town or a metastasized Best Western with Ottoman Conquest flourishes. We strolled through the Eyup graveyard, peeping into the tomb of a sultan’s mother, and then on into Eyup Sultan itself where the tomb of the Companion was open. It was quiet and there were few people there, all praying. As usual the tomb was in an inner chamber and barely visible through a window, just an impression of delicate carving and light reflected off wrought silver.
We walked towards Balat through the quiet streets, crossing the point at which the land walls meet the Golden Horn and thus connecting some earlier walks. Along the way were modest, pretty neighbourhoods, with colourful sagging row houses set up steep cobbled streets; the occasional fountain or a tiny green-walled garden with a saint’s tomb and a bench for the pious, or a little mosque on a little cliff edge with steps leading down to another courtyard and, beyond that, the water (with the road barely visible in between).
We reached familiar ground in Balat and walked on through Fener, a bit that we’ve not actually visited all that often. Along the way we came across a man selling some produce and bought some strawberries and popping corn, which the GF and cooked up on our return, with great success. I was quite astonished, as I think it’s quite hard to get good popcorn on the stove, but this was excellent, perfectly popped.