x0x Escape up the Bosphorus 

JAMES BLICK

We wait on the edge of Istanbul for the number 150 to Garipce. The bus, when it comes, is an old one like from my childhood. 
And it complains constantly as we lurch through the folding hills above the Bosphorus. Occasionally the land parts and we 
glimpse the mercurial strait of wind-tossed water below, dividing Europe and Asia and coursing between Istanbul and the Black 
Sea. 

For many tourists a day-trip out of heady Istanbul means island-hopping the Princes' Islands. Instead my wife and I are 
weaving up the European shore of the Bosphorus. Istanbulites drive up on weekends, unwinding and eating at villages that hug 
the water's edge. We've come midweek to avoid the crowds. And by the looks of our fellow passengers old men, mothers, all 
Turks it's an idyllic day-trip that remains off the tourist to-do list.

We drop out of the hills into tiny Garipce. Half-hidden in a sheltered Bosphorus cove, its name is Turkish for "strange".

The bus brakes at the rocky shore where blue-hulled rowboats lie upturned in the sun. 

Houses burrow into the hills above us and two browning Ottoman villas, signs of better times, lie abandoned opposite the 
water, their roofs caving in. Coloured nets clutter the village and this morning men and boys sit by the Bosphorus, chatting 
and mending entangled mounds. 

Fish dictate Garipce's economy, and its daily rhythms. The men shove off nightly and their catch is the following day's lunch 
at the three village restaurants.

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