I went for a training ride yesterday with two friends. We headed up to the north and cycled through the Black Sea shore. We climbed a lot. First, we headed to Kısırkaya, where the road has a lot of short-but-really-steep…
Karaburun is a small village in the northeast of Istanbul, near the Black Sea. Me and two friends cycled there and swam in the sea.
Since the medieval Byzantine period, 200 meters off the shore of the Salacak district in Üsküdar, at the southern entrance of the Bosphorus, a tower lyes on a small islet: The Maiden’s Tower (Turkish: Kız Kulesi). It is also (mistakenly)…
It was the first day of April. The wind was strong, but the sun was shining, and the air was surprisingly warm – the kind of day that almost insists you go outside. So I took my bike and headed…
Another Sunday bike ride in Istanbul: I started as early as 6:00 in the morning, first headed to South (Ortaköy), then climbed up to Maden (Sarıyer) and went to Rumeli Lighthouse village. At the end of the ride, I covered…
It’s March now and March is the month of misty, chilly mornings in Istanbul. It was a beautiful Sunday morning, the roads were empty. A perfect day for a bike ride in Istanbul! The roads would be crowded soon, so…
On the European side of Istanbul, just one kilometer away from Maslak, one of the city’s main business districts, there is a lovely place to spend some time in greenery: Emirgan Park. It overlooks the Bosphorus (see notes 1) in…
Jason Moran’s “Ringing My Phone” (Straight Outta Istanbul) features a sampled phone conversation between a girl (his hostess) and her mother in Turkish.
In January 2012, on a Sunday, it suddenly started snowing very heavily. After a while, the electricity went out. There wasn’t much to do at home, so knowing how beautiful Belgrad Forest looks under the snow, I decided to go…
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.