Trev's travails: A week in Istanbul

We spent a couple of days on the Asian side of Istanbul. The pace and bustle was considerably quieter than on the busier European side.

We ferried from Beşiktaş to Kadiköy

and passed by the Maiden's Tower - a tower lying on a small islet located at the southern entrance of the Bosphorus strait 200 metres from the coast of Üsküdar. During the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the tower held a Byzantine garrison. Subsequently, the structure was used as a watchtower by the Ottoman Turks during the reign of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror

The tower was destroyed during the earthquake of 1509, and burned in 1721. Since then it was used as a lighthouse, and the surrounding walls were repaired in 1731 and 1734, until in 1763 it was erected using stone. From 1829 the tower was used as a quarantine station, and in 1832 was restored by Sultan Mahmud II

For any James Bond fans, the tower featured in The World Is Not Enough. It was also visible in the background in From Russia with Love

We travelled by tram to the smaller district of Moda

We saw the Fenerbahçe Stadium ...

... and this statue of Brazilian footballer, Alexsandro de Souza, commonly known as Alex. He was sold by Cruzeiro in 2004 for 5 million euro to Fenerbahçe and he became captain after the team's captain Ümit Özat's transfer to Köln. He scored his 100th goal in the Süper Lig for Fenerbahçe in November 2010.

After Fenerbahçe's league title in 2010-11, Alex won the golden boot award with 28 goals for the season. On September 15, 2012, while Alex was still under contract with Fenerbahçe, a fan-funded statue of the player was unveiled in Kadıköy Yoğurtçu park

We also took the opportunity to visit another famous railway station - now sadly closed.

The Haydarpaşa Terminal of the Turkish State Railways is close to Kadıköy's centre, having served east- and south-bound international, domestic and regional trains until 2009.railways

Haydarpaşa Terminal was opened in 1908 as the terminus of the İstanbul-Baghdad and İstanbul-Damascus-Medina

The decor in the entrance and booking halls were impressive

These trains are sadly going nowhere these days

Very close to the railway station we came across this cemetery which is run by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. This is the Haydarpaşa Cemetery and was established initially for British military personnel, who took part in the Crimean War (1854–1856). The cemetery holds also graves of Commonwealth soldiers from the two World Wars, and civilians of British nationality. This obelisk was erected in 1857 by order of Queen Victoria to commemorate those who died in the Crimea.

The soldiers died mostly as the result of cholera epidemic in the first organised military hospital in modern history created by Florence Nightingale. A bronze plaque, attached by the British community in Turkey on the plinth of the Crimean Memorial and unveiled on Empire Day, 1954 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s nursing service in this region, bears the inscription:

"To Florence Nightingale, whose work near this Cemetery a century ago relieved much human suffering and laid the foundations for the nursing profession."

Gravestone for the soldiers from the 17th Lancers who fell at Sebastopol

Other monuments in the cemetery include a symbolic broken column in memorial of German Jäger officers who fell in the Crimea

There are just over 400 graves of military personnel from World War I, who died in Turkey mostly as prisoners of war or some during the occupation of Istanbul (1918 to 1923) after the Armistice of Mudros.