We went for a bicycle ride with a couple of friends to the Asian side of Istanbul. We crossed the Bosphorus by boat. And I took some photos on a beautiful September morning.
The Bosphorus or Bosporus (Turkish: Boğaziçi, Greek: Βόσπορος, Vosporos), also referred to sometimes as the Istanbul Strait (Turkish: İstanbul Boğazı), is a strait that forms part of the boundary between Europe and Asia. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles strait to the southwest together form the Turkish Straits. The world’s narrowest strait used for international navigation, the Bosphorus connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara (which is connected by the Dardanelles to the Aegean Sea, and thereby to the Mediterranean Sea.)
The name comes from Greek Bosporos (Βόσπορος), which the ancient Greeks analyzed as bous βοῦς ‘ox’ + poros πόρος ‘means of passing a river, ford, ferry’, thus meaning ‘ox-ford’, which is a reference to Io (mythology) from Greek mythology who was transformed into a cow and condemned to wander the earth until she crossed the Bosphorus where she met Prometheus.
Although it has been known for a while that the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara flow into each other in an example of a density flow, findings of a study by the University of Leeds in August 2010 reveal that there is in fact an underwater channel of high-density water flowing across the floor of the Bosphorus (caused by the difference in density of the two seas), which would be the sixth-largest river on Earth if it were to be on land.
The bridge is named after the 15th century Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, who conquered Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453 from the Byzantine Empire. It carries the European route E80, Asian Highway 1, and Otoyol 2 highways.
Sources
- Bosphorus on Wikipedia
- Istanbul Population [Year by Year, up to 2023] - September 26, 2023
- Spring Has Sprung in Istanbul - March 26, 2023
- Valide Dam in Belgrade Forest - February 21, 2023