Island

As I stepped off the boat onto a splintering and weather bleached wooden jetty, I glance down the row of near deserted waterfront cafes. This was what I needed. I had just arrived on Heybeliada, one of the group of islands collectively known as the Prince's Islands, situated in the Bosphorus Strait between Istanbul and the Sea of Marmara.

Something strange about sounds is that you only really notice them when they are no longer there. I would imagine that for anyone who has grown accustomed to Istanbul's constant drone of engines, shriek of sirens and beeps of indignation, on Heybeliada these sounds are loud in their absence. For there are no cars on Heybeliada; people move around the island by foot or by bike, unless they are loved-up tourist couples, who tend to prefer a horse and carriage.

I made my way into the island’s small and only town, or rather ‘settlement’, as it is labelled in my guidebook. There I spent a happy half hour wandering around the maze of cobbled streets, taking in the ramshackle assortment of dingy cafes, little houses and Ottoman architecture, all in varying states of disrepair. I lowered my gaze and hid my camera as I walked past a line of old men sitting on stools propped up against the sun-warmed stone of a shabby old café, all of whom look as though they have been there, and will remain there, for an eternity. They stared at me like I had come from outer-space.

I spotted a set of stone steps stretching up to a summit beyond my field of vision, and I started to climb. They lead me straight up. Past the ancient little houses, past makeshift wooden fences, past cats nonchalantly grooming themselves on benches placed at random angles in the middle of the road, past a tatty looking cockerel making a strangled sound, past young boys calling out as they ride their bikes around the streets at full pelt, past a pair of women gossiping at each other across the street from the second-floor windows of their respective houses. I heard a whinny to my right and turned just in time to step out of the way of a beautiful Palomino who trotted across my path, not a tether in sight.

Near the summit the houses give way to grass and cedar trees. At the top there is a playground and a small football pitch. Beyond this the cedar forest predominates. I walked for a while along a grassy sun-streaked path, until eventually I came to a clearing in which there was a wooden bench with light-blue peeling paint and various names etched into it. Here there is a stunning view of the dark green dips and rises of the island, a little cove perfectly curved, and a dazzling expanse of ocean, stretching on and on into the haze of the sun, interrupted only by the peak of another island emerging from the shining mist of the water. All I could hear was birds and sea.