FORTRESS OF ROUMELIA (RUMELI HISARI)

The fortress, even if imposing, has no particular features. Its charm comes above all from its dream location on the banks of the Bosporus. Climb the steps of the 57-metre high Zaganos Tower to dominate the Bosporus. Even the strong wind does not spoil the pleasure. The quays are charming all around, and you will find small cafés and restaurants to recharge your batteries.

In 1452, Sultan Mehmed II the Conqueror was determined to get his hands on the irreducible Constantinople. For several years now, he has been developing a vast conquest project, including the unprecedented design of super-powerful guns. Nothing should be left to chance and especially not the Bosporus Strait, which could well see the arrival of a Christian fleet landing from the Black Sea via the Danube. The sultan himself drew up the plans and more than 3,000 workers were busy working day and night. In 4 months and 13 days, a 250 m long fortress appeared. Facing a previous fortress (Anadolu Hisarı), it is the narrowest point of the strait without forgetting the currents that make navigation dangerous! Constantine XI Dragases, still unaware that he would join history forever as the last emperor of Byzantium, tried to oppose it. That's where the legend comes in. Byzantium excels in the art of negotiation, an ancestral tradition that has saved it from many adventures. Using his hunting activities as an excuse, the Sultan asked Constantinople for permission to build a pavilion there. The emperor accepts but delimits its size: it will be on the surface of an ox skin. The sultan nods: a skin is cut into very thin strips and distributed, end to end, to delimit its space. The sultan is a winner in reality as in legend and Byzantium falls, without the fortress really being of any use whatsoever. We'll quickly turn it into a small prison afterward. The Knights of Malta will be the first to suffer the consequences. In time, it will be abandoned to its fate, even seeing a population settling there. Restored between 1953 and 1958, it was converted into a museum and concert hall. It has 17 towers and 5 doors. Ottoman and European cannons are on display in the fortress, which is now a garden, as well as pieces of the chain that closed the Golden Horn to shipping as part of the Byzantine defence system.