The
lords walnut, was the reputed home of King Amycus, and here, on the spot
where he fell in battle with Polydeuces, was planted a bay tree, which
caused madness in any who decked themselves with its branches. It is one
of the larger villages on the Asia shore of the bosphorus and, despite
industrial growth around its edges. The village is still very appealing
with lovely old houses good fish restaurants and a shady main square with
what was once a splendid 18th century fountain in it.
Hunkar Iskelesi, the imperial landing stage so named because in the wooded
valley nearby Mehmet the Conqueror built a royal pavilion, rebuilt by
Suleyman the Magnificent, and the Sultans landed here when they visited
it. It was here in October 1833 that the Treaty of Hunkar Iskelesi was
signed between Russia and Ottoman Empire.
The present little palace was only built in the middle of the nineteenth
century by the architect Sarkis Balyan, it is now used as a hospital but
is still shaded by a lovely grove of plane trees.
