Burgazada

Island · AdalarIstanbul,Türkiye

The quietest of the large Princes' Islands, one pine hill above a small harbour, carless, with the writer Sait Faik's house on it.

Burgazada is the quietest of the big Princes' Islands, a single pine-covered hill rising behind a small harbour town in the Marmara. A domed church stands over the pier as you come in. There are no private cars in the streets, and even the horse carriages are gone, replaced by quiet electric carts. Lanes run west across the hill to the cliffs at Kalpazankaya, and small swimming coves notch the shore. The woods on the hill are regrowing after a hard fire. Burgazada stayed largely Greek-speaking into the twentieth century, and its Turkish name comes from pyrgos, the Greek word for the tower that once watched from the hill. It was the lifelong home of the writer Sait Faik Abasıyanık, who shared a house here with his mother until he died in 1954. The fire that took forty hectares in 2003 left low evergreen scrub in place of pine — arbutus, laurel and broom, whose seeds need a fire's heat to open.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Read Sait Faik first — one of his short stories before you come, and the back lanes and fishermen's coves stop being scenery and become his characters' world.
The island Istanbul escapes to — while Büyükada fills with day-trippers, Burgazada stays the calm sibling; midweek the waterfront and pine paths can feel near-empty.
Coves over beaches — the real swimming is off the rocks at Kalpazankaya and the little inlets, not organised sand; bring something to lie on, it is all bare stone.
September is the quiet prize — the Marmara holds its summer warmth long after the crowds thin, so early autumn gives the warmest water and the emptiest coves.
Half a day covers it — Burgazada is under a third the size of Büyükada and about two kilometres across, so the harbour, the cliffs and the summit fit into one walk.

Things to do

1
Climb down the Kalpazankaya rocks
Walk the pine lane west out of town until the ground ends at the cliff, then pick your way down the terraces of flat rock to the water. It is a straight step off stone into deep water, with no shallows to wade through. At the end of the day people gather on the cliff above to watch the sun go down; from the rocks you are below them, already in the water.
2
Walk into Sait Faik's rooms
From the harbour, find the modest house where the writer lived. Move slowly through the small rooms, linger in the garden, then wander out along the same back lanes and quays where his characters loitered, argued and fished — the island outside simply continues the museum.
3
Climb to the island's crown
Take the lanes uphill through the pines to Hristos Tepesi, the island's single summit, crowned by a small Greek chapel of Christ. Catch your breath in the shade, then let the whole Sea of Marmara and the neighbouring islands lay themselves out below you, the city a faint line on the horizon.