Showing posts with label Prince's Islands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prince's Islands. Show all posts

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Heybeliada Sanitarium


DHA photos via Hurriyetdailynews.com

I love finding off-the-beaten path, interesting buildings, but sanitarium might just say it all for me today. Wish I could tell you what it looked like before... After all, I stayed on neighboring Büyükada for weeks and could have easily visited. But of course, I never made it there and so now all we have is this photo of a burned-out shell.

The Heybeliada Sanitarium was created from an historic building in 1924 as a tuberculosis hospital. Waiting lists were long and health resort-style treatments were largely to comfort patients with the uncureable disease of the era. Who could complain, though? With the lovely sea views and pine forests surrounding on all sides, the hospital was idyllic.

Eventually, the hospital's location on an island became a burden for modern medicine. The property was boarded up and an inadequate fire rescue team couldn't handle the blaze. The entire structure was destroyed.

I filed the story location away in my head for someone to meet an unhappy fate in that abandoned building.

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Thursday, July 15, 2010

The Prince's Islands

Many of the historic sites in Turkey are well known around the world, like the Grand Bazaar perhaps. Others are not so famous. I try to include places people wouldn’t think of right away in my writing.

The Prince's Islands in Istanbul were a popular retreat of the late Ottomans and the architecture reflects a marked European influence. They are worth the trip though you need a spare hour on a ferry to get there and another for the way back. People with a couple days in the city rarely make the time investment to visit. I was fortunate enough to spend two weeks on Büyükada one summer, and it was a great inspiration for my writing so many years later.

While describing my absolute favorite house on the island from memory, I came across a tourist's photo of it on the web. Way back when, I was so taken by it that I even asked one of the island real estate brokers how much it might cost, or something similar, since it wasn't actually for sale. My husband thought $100,000 was outrageous. I knew better (I'm a broker now myself) and if I had the money then…still don’t have it now, but you get the idea. The photo on the right is something like that house.

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Exhibit of Adalar Photos at the new Prince's Island Museum

The opening of the the Prince's Islands Museum

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