The GF had today off, and I had finished my work on Sunday, aside from the social media posts for the week. I finished up Monday’s lot and sent them off, and then got asked to look at the layout for a document I’d edited, and was appalled at the number of errors – it is due to be launched tomorrow. So I did what I could there.
Then, the GF woke up and we took the ferry over to Uskudar, intending to retrace our steps over the hill to Kuzguncuk. It was funny weather – a little grey and humid, quite warm, but with a very cool breeze over the Bosphorus. We climbed up through the very steep hillside park, enjoying the trees and feeling of being surrounded by greenery, which was even greener because it was quite grey. By the time we left the park a slight drizzle had started. We climbed down the equally steep hillside, finding a few pedestrian stairs to cut between the long, tight loops of the road, and soon arrived in Kuzguncuk, which surely has the highest number of cafes per capita of anywhere in the world.
We found a cafe – as with our last journey, one clearly run by a family of pleasant witches – and had breakfast with a really quite good quiche and aubergine borek, all very homemadey. But the star was a jam made from the fruit of a tree in the eldest witch’s garden, so delicious that we immediately bought a jar. Then a bit more strolling, including down to the tiny ferry pier to see if there were any ways back through the water, which there weren’t. A coffee, and a climb back up and down that ridge, with one excellent shortcut through some houses’ back garden, ushered along by the woman living in the first, until she handed us over to the women living in the next.
The ferry back from Uskudar was by far the worst ferry we’ve been in. It stank, for one, and although we were in the open bit, it felt close and congested, largely thanks to a rather high railing of grubby smoked glass, and the seats were grimy smooth plastic so one slipped and slid with every wave. Terrible. But other than that (and of course the terrible document layout in the morning), a very good day.