Now I know what was going on last night. The temperature has dropped to 7 degrees and we are about to reach another continent, a continent that joins the east and brings an icy wind. Europe is definitely behind us.As we wake up, the Alessia is already beyond the seas of the Dardanelles and Gallipolli, the historic place where the Turks inflicted the biggest rattle in the British Empire in 1916, a nightmare that would haunt Winston Churchill until after World War II.We are now sailing through the Sea of Marmara, straight down to the Bosphorus and Istanbul. This passage to Istanbul and the Black Sea is narrow and around us tankers, container ships and coasters are rushing through the funnel, eastwards.
"The radar looks like a beehive: arrows moving everywhere."
Outside the friendly and warm Mediterranean atmosphere is definitely gone. The Sea of Marmara is a kind of Turkish inland sea and the mountains we pass left and right are inhospitable barren, gray and sullen. Every romance is wiped away with a cold hand. We sail into a very different, hard world."The thrill is gone" BBKing sings. The beautiful song is out and the only place to digest this is my warm cabin.
"After 5,850 kilometres, Istanbul comes into view."
The sky is cloudy, the entrance to the Bosphorus is wild and untamed. Finally I can see the city in the distance. I had hoped for a euphoric and tingling feeling inside me. Constantinople. Byzantium... What did the Crusaders feel a thousand years ago when they reached this gate on the east, the last stop to Jerusalem ?But it's cold, it's starting to rain and the Bosphorus is throwing a dam against any joy. The magnitude of what I see is hard to comprehend. Istanbul has 14 million inhabitants and is as vast as two Belgian provinces. On the water dozens, if not hundreds of ships are waiting at anchor. From the platform on deck D I can see the city approaching, at least the part close to the harbour. It is just a remote corner of this metropolis, a fraction, the little toe of a mogul that has retreated behind a layer of cloud cover.This mini-particle, this particle, must represent Istanbul for me.
"I have to take a picture of this, I don't feel right,"
I'm certainly not touched, not happy, but I must have the real, the pars pro toto - the part for the whole, the illusion of a reality, the too small flag to cover the load. I point my camera at the city with the magic name.A beep sounds and on the screen the message: "battery device empty."
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