At the entrance of the Marmara Sea of the Bosphorus, the Maiden's Tower, which has been greeting the Galata Tower and Topkapı Palace with grace for centuries, is the pearl of Üsküdar. The tower was built on a tiny island off Salacak. Most of the current building of the Maiden's Tower, which guides hundreds of ships as a lighthouse at night, was built during the period of Sultan Mehmed II. The current shape of the tower was given during the time of Mahmud II, and for this reason, a 2nd Mahmud monogram dated 1832, which came out of the pen of Calligrapher Rasim, is still hanging in the Maiden's Tower.
Famous traveler Evliya Çelebi describes the Maiden's Tower, which dates back to 341 BC, as follows:
“It’s artfully built high tower in the sea, away from an arrow shot from the land. Its height is exactly eighty cubits. The surface is two hundred steps. It has doors from two sides."
The Maiden’s Tower, which was used for different purposes such as collecting taxes from commercial ships, protecting the Strait, even a quarantine hospital and radio station in the cholera epidemic in 1830, now serves as a restaurant.
One of the beauties that make the Maiden's Tower unique is the legends about it:
Hero’s Legend with Leandros...
Hero is a very beautiful nun who lives in the Maiden's Tower. Love is forbidden because she is a nun, but a young man named Leander falls in love with this nun. Leander comes to the tower by swimming every night to see her, and this way they continue to live their love secretly. Leander, losing his way in the sea and drowning, as a result of the fire that Hero lit on a stormy night, went out. The next day, Hero, who sees Leander's body on the shore, commits suicide by leaving herself in the water. Due to this legend, the Maiden's Tower is also referred to as Leander's Tower in foreign sources.
The snake in the fruit basket...
According to another legend, The Byzantine Emperor Constantinus has a daughter who he loves very much. One day, a seer tells him that this girl will die from a snake bite. Upon this, the ruler begins to hide his daughter in a tower built in the middle of the sea. That's right, what is a snake doing in the middle of the sea? However, it still does not stop the prophecy. One day, a snake hides in the fruit basket that came to the girl and divination takes place. The girl dies right there.