El Bósforo

To be traveling through the middle of a city as great, historic, and forlorn as Istambul, and yet to feel the freedom of the open sea- that is the thrill of a trip along the Bosforus. Pushed along by its strog currents, invogorated by the sea air that bears no trace of the dirt, smoke, and noise of the crowded city that surrounds it, the traveler begins to feel that, in spite of everything, this is still a place in which he can enjoy solitude and find freedom.

This waterway that passes through the center of the city is not to be confused with the canals of Amsterdam or Venice or the rivers that divide Paris and Rome in two: Strong currents run through the Bosforus, its surface is always ruffled by wind and waves, and its waters are deep and dark.
If you have the current behind you, if you are following the itinerary of a city ferry, you will see apartment buildings and yalis, old ladies watching you from balconies as they sip their tea, the pergolas of coffehouses perched by landings, children in their underwear entering the sea just where the sewers empty into it and sunning themselves on the concrete, men fishing from the banks, people lazing on their yachts, schoolchildren emptying out of school and walkig along the shore, travelers gazing through bus windows out to the sea while stuck in traffic, cats sitting on wharfs waiting for fishermen, trees you hadn't realize were so tall, hidden villas and walled gardens you didn't even know existed, narrow alleyways rising up into the hills, tall apartment buildings looming by evergreens and centuries-old plane trees -even for a child, it was to know that a great civilization had stood here, and, from what they told me, people very much like us once upon a time led a live extravagantly different from our own - leaving us who followed them feeling the poorer, weaker and more provincial.

Ohran Pamuk, Istambul, Memories and the city.