Maiden's Tower
Ancient islet tower at the Bosphorus narrows, a sentinel through Byzantine and Ottoman rule.
This guide to Maiden's Tower in Istanbul opens in April 1453, as the Ottoman fleet seals the Bosphorus and a Venetian sea captain named Gabriele Trevisano holds the tiny islet with fifty men while Constantinople begins to fall. It traces the tower's repeated rebuildings under Mehmed the Second and later a grand vizier, and its shifting later lives as a lighthouse, a cholera-era quarantine ward and a naval radar station. You'll also hear the legend behind its Turkish name, Kız Kulesi, about a sultan, a locked-away daughter and a prophecy involving a serpent. Look back from the water at how the strait narrows exactly here.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.