Büyükada: wooden mansions and the monastery climb
The car-free island — ferry, wooden mansions, pine forest, and the monastery at the summit. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Büyükada İskelesi
Ninety minutes from Eminönü on the Adalar Hattı; fifty from Bostancı or Kadıköy on the Asian side. Step off the ferry and the pier opens onto Birlik Meydanı. The walk's a loop back to this point — last ferry around 8pm in summer, sooner in winter.

2. Birlik Meydanı
The clock tower and the Belle Époque Splendid Otel — the entrance to the island. Head south down Çankaya Caddesi; the wooden mansions start within a hundred metres. Phaetons used to wait at this square for fares around the island; they're gone since 2019, replaced by small electric vans.

3. Yanaros mansion (Trotsky's house)
On the right side of Çankaya, the late-19th-century wooden mansion where Leon Trotsky lived in exile from 1929 to 1933, expelled from the Soviet Union and writing his autobiography. The house is private and unmarked but visible from the road. The neighbourhood around it is the island's most photographed.

4. The pine-forest path
South of the village, the road becomes a path through the pine forest. The trees are mostly red pine, planted in the 1920s. Take it slowly; pilgrims walk up barefoot on Aya Yorgi feast days (April 23 and September 23), and you can see why — the path is the climb.

5. Aya Yorgi Manastırı
Small white monastery, two hundred metres up, the highest point of the island. The terrace gives you the Sea of Marmara, the smaller Princes' Islands, and Istanbul on the mainland horizon. Pilgrims traditionally unspool a thread on the way up and make a wish; tie one if you want, or don't.

6. Back at Büyükada İskelesi
Return the way you came, or take the longer eastern loop back through the residential streets if your knees agree. Check the ferry board on arrival — schedules thin in shoulder seasons. The boat back is the second half of the walk.

Büyükada: wooden mansions and the monastery climb