Trotsky, cats, and Buyukada

So much of the city of Istanbul is so well-developed and cute; where we stayed, the streets were clean, the buildings were well taken care of, and the streets were lively. Aside from nests of telephone wires and sometimes-unpredictable sidewalk conditions, it felt very European.

When we took a ferry to Buyukada, the largest of the Princes’ Islands, which has been a summer getaway location for many years, I was surprised to see ramshackle buildings that looked as if they were minutes away from crumbling to pieces. So many mansions had been abandoned and left for the dogs (figuratively dogs, but literally cats… we saw a lot of cats). It was fascinating to see and hard to imagine why no one was doing anything about all those giant plots of land in desperate need of restoration. One of these homes belonged to Trotsky, a prominent figure in the early 20^th century Russian Revolution, who lived there after being exiled from Russia.

We also ate lunch at a cute little place called Secret Garden. The food was not the best that we’ve had, but the experience was fun. A couple cats befriended us there and one insisted on sitting on my backpack by my feet.

We had a great time and thank you to Jean-Sebastien, my new French buddy from the airplane, for the recommendation to visit this island!

Sweet cats… everywhere!