Fener & Balat Walking Tour

Waking to the cooing of a pair of doves debating the weather on my open windowsill 😂

We set off using more of Istanbul’s impressively extensive public transport system… adding the Metro to my collection 😜😂

At one point our stop was literally in the middle of a bridge… which felt slightly alarming as you stepped off the train 😳

We met up with our group for a Fener–Balat walking tour, where we learnt about the many different nationalities that have lived in these two neighbourhoods over the centuries - including Greeks, Armenians, Jews and Bulgarians. Istanbul really has been a crossroads of cultures for a very long time.

Our first stop was Church of St. George (Ecumenical Patriarchate), a Greek Orthodox cathedral. The church was recently visited by the Pope and houses a small but fascinating collection of religious relics, including the remains of three female martyrs from the Roman era, bones from various saints and even a fragment believed to be from the whipping column that Jesus was tied to 😳

From there we headed uphill into the arty area of Fener, full of quirky little shops, colourful buildings and cafés. Definitely the sort of place you could happily spend a few hours wandering around.

At this point I grabbed a Turkish coffee to keep me going 😜

Perched high on the hill above the neighbourhood is the impressive Greek Orthodox Private School. Its architecture looks far more European than Ottoman and apparently the bricks were even imported from France when it was built.

We then wandered back down into Balat, where rows of tall, brightly coloured houses line the streets… one of the most photographed areas of the city.

Our final stop was the beautiful Bulgarian Saint Stephen Church, right by the water. The church is quite unique as it’s actually a prefabricated iron structure that was manufactured elsewhere and assembled here… an unusual building and a lovely place to end the tour.

An interesting morning exploring another side of Istanbul… although I’ll admit there was possibly slightly more historical politics than my brain could process before lunch 😂Read more