A Caique on the Golden Horn

Hatice will collect you from your hotel and ride the tram or metro with you to the pier, where you board a wooden caique, the traditional boat of this water, but now fitted with a quiet motor. For an hour or so, you move slowly around the upper Golden Horn, the city’s harbor for 2000 years; the very reason Byzantium was built where it was. You head out towards the small Bahariye islets, Kosmidion to the Byzantines, and back. Turkish tea comes with a simple breakfast on board: simit, cheeses, olives. You step ashore at Eyüp where the Horn narrows between green hills. Hatice walks you past Ottoman wooden houses to Eyüp Sultan Mosque, built beside the tomb of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, a companion of the Prophet Muhammad. A cable car lifts you to Pierre Loti hill for coffee above the water you just crossed. It’s a magnificent view. On the way down, you stop for a tasting at a small eatery that cooks for locals. The morning ends at Eyüp tram stop, an easy ride back to your hotel on your own.

Hatice centers this tour around a nostalgic morning on the waters of a legendary inlet. In a city of fifteen million, the upper Golden Horn at this hour is quiet enough that you hear the water against the hull and the calls of seabirds. A wooden boat on the Golden Horn is about reliving the romance of the past, for this is where Istanbullus went for pleasure. Nedim, poet of the 18th-century Tulip court wrote a song Turks still know: “Look, there's a swift caique all ready at the pier below, let us visit Sadâbâd, let us go.” Your caique heads the same way, past islets where waterside mansions of that era once stood. Stepping ashore at Eyüp follows an older route still: new sultans came here by boat to be girded with the sword of Osman. Istanbul families have come to its shrine since the 15th century. From the hilltop coffeehouse you look down at the whole Horn — the early morning spent looking up at the hills, the late morning looking down at the water, each half a mirror of the other.

Hatice Kelek grew up in Istanbul and trained as a licensed cultural guide, with a Master’s in tour guiding from Ege University. She works across Turkey in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. History, food, and philosophy interest her in equal measure. She tells history through the people who lived it and the ones still living it: like the boat captains on the Golden Horn, the people behind Eyüp’s small eateries, people you’ll see along the walk. On the water, she brings the old caique world back to life, with stories of the 19th-century that are about this shore. She reads her guests and shapes the pace and the stories around what draws them. The caique is handled by an experienced local boatman who has worked the Golden Horn for years — a steady hand, and good company on the water.

Comfortable shoes for walking; there are some slopes. A layer for the boat; the Golden Horn runs cool early morning. In summer, a hat. Modest dress in case you decide to visit the mosque: shoulders and knees covered, and a scarf for women. Shoes come off at the door. Inform Hatice about dietary or mobility restrictions. ** The boat depends on the weather. The Golden Horn is sheltered, so most mornings are fine. If conditions look unsafe for sailing, Hatice will cancel 2-3 days ahead.