Maiden's Tower

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Kizkulesi is placed off the coast of Salacak local in Üsküdar district, at the southern entrance of the Bosphorus. It actually manner "Maiden's Tower" in Turkish. 

The identify comes from a legend: the Byzantine emperor heard a prophecy telling him that his cherished daughter would die on the age of 18 through a snake. So he decided to put her in this tower built on a rock on the Bosphorus remoted from the land consequently no snake would kill her. However she couldn't break out from her destiny in spite of everything, a snake hidden in a fruit basket brought from town bit the princess and killed her.

Yet another legend wrongly mentions Hero and Leander in the tower, hence some men and women wrongly name it "Leander's Tower", a sad love story informed by means of Ovidius: Hero used to be one of the vital priestess of Aphrodite living in the tower. At some point she left the tower to attend a ceremony within the temple where she met Leandros and they fall in love with every other. Leandros swam to the tower every night time to talk over with his love, in the meantime she used to be conserving a torch to guide him at midnight waters closer to her in the tower. However on a stormy night Leandros couldn't see the sunshine given that it was once put out by the winds, and he swam all night loosing his approach unless he was drowned. Hero, because her lover died, she also jumped into the water and suicided. Some people narrate this love story as it was once occurred on the Bosphorus, however correctly it's a legend from the Dardanelles, when Leandros was once swimming to Hero between Abydos (trendy Eceabat) and Sestus (modern Canakkale city).

Kizkulesi is relationship back to the fifth century BC when it was developed with the aid of the Athenian general Alcibiades on a rock at the entrance of the Bosphorus for the surveillance of the waterway. A sequence was once pulled from the land to the tower to make it a checkpoint and customs discipline for the ships going via. After a few restorations in timber and stone, Emperor Alexius Comnenos constructed a powerful defense tower in the 12th century advert calling it Arcla, meaning "Small Tower". The tower was once used as a lighthouse and manipulate tower also during the Ottoman interval after the Conquest of Constantinople. Ultimate restoration used to be done in 1998 and opened as a restaurant after spending around 3million US bucks.

The tower was once featured in probably the most James Bond films in 1999; "the sector will not be ample", the place the terrorists placed a nuclear submarine beneath the tower to be exploded within the coronary heart of the city and the place "M" (Judi Dench) used to be imprisoned by using an oil mogul's daughter (Sophie Marceu) which Bond (Pierce Brosnan) had to kill her.

In these days, Kizkulesi is a very preferred and classy restaurant and cafeteria-bar. It presents 360 measure views of the Bosphorus and the old metropolis, above all at night time. There are a few shuttle boats going to the tower at specified times from Kabatas neighborhood on the european part of Istanbul and from Salacak nearby on the Asian aspect. It's also a preferred situation for summer season weddings. The tower is closed on Mondays.