The Maiden’s Tower

Kız Kulesi, on its own islet a couple of hundred metres off Üsküdar, has been a toll post, a lighthouse, a quarantine station and a customs house. The current structure is nineteenth-century on much older foundations, and it was restored and reopened in 2023.

The name comes from a story about an emperor who shut his daughter in it to escape a prophecy about a snake, which arrived in a basket of fruit. Every version of the tale ends the same way.

What it costs

Looking at it costs nothing, and every ferry between the continents passes it. Landing on the islet is a ticketed boat from Üsküdar or Kabataş, and there is a café and a viewing level at the top.

When to go

The tower is lit at night and the view of it from the Üsküdar waterfront at dusk is the one worth having. The boat over runs on a timetable and stops in bad weather — it is a small boat in an open strait.

Uskudar is worth the crossing whether or not you land on the islet: a working Asian-side neighbourhood with two Sinan mosques on the waterfront and none of Sultanahmet’s crowd.

Getting there

Üsküdar, by ferry from Eminönü or Kabataş, or by Marmaray under the Bosphorus. The landing boats leave from the Salacak shore, a short walk south.

If you only have an hour

Do not go over. Walk the Üsküdar waterfront path south from the ferry pier for fifteen minutes with the tower on your right and the whole old-city skyline across the water on your left. That walk is free and is better than the tower.

What people get wrong

Searching for it by name and finding the other one. There is a Kız Kulesi off Mersin, six hundred kilometres away, and the pictures get mixed up constantly.

And booking the boat without checking the weather. The strait gets rough, the crossing is short but exposed, and the service stops when it does.