Maiden's Tower
The Maiden's Tower, also known as Leander's Tower but locally as Kız Kulesi, stands on a small islet located at the southern entrance of the Bosphorus strait in the city of Istanbul, in the province of Istanbul in Turkey.
The first building on this islet, just some 200 meters from the coast, may have been a 5th century B.C., Athenian custom station for ships coming from the Black Sea.
In 1110 the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos built a wooden tower here, protected by a stone wall. From the tower an iron chain stretched across to another tower erected on the European shore in Constantinople. The islet was then connected to the Asian shore through a defense wall, which has not survived until the present.
In 1453, during the Ottoman Conquest of Constantinople, the tower held a Byzantine garrison commanded by the Venetian Gabriele Trevisano. Subsequently, the tower was used as a watchtower by the Ottomans. In 1509 the tower was severely damaged during the Constantinople Earthquake but was rebuilt. Later that century its function changed from being a watchtower to being a lighthouse and its cannon were only used for ceremonies.
Around 1720 the Maiden's Tower suffered from a fire. Later during the 18th century it was restored several times. In the 1830s the tower was used as a quarantine hospital for cholera and plague patients. It was again restored in 1832 by Sultan Mahmud II.
During the 20th century it was again restored and was first used by the Turkish military and later by the Istanbul port authorities. After the 1999 Izmit Earthquake the tower was strengthened with steel supports.
The name Maiden's Tower (Kız Kulesi being its literal translation into Turkish) comes from a legend in which an emperor interned his daughter here to unsuccessfully prevent the fulfilling of a prophecy that she would die on her 18th birthday.
At present Maiden's Tower can be visited for a small fee with a boat from the Asian shore. It houses a cafe-restaurant during the day and a reservation-only restaurant in the evening. A nice tower in a beautiful setting. I wasn't able to visit it this time but I hope I will visit it in the future.
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