Someone's grandma is sitting with friends, their tea in tulip-shaped glasses, an open tin of pastries. They are playing bezique and she's holding forth, not in Turkish, but in medieval Spanish. You are an hour by steamer from the centre of Istanbul, and it is 500 years since her ancestors fled here following the Inquisition, at the invitation of Sultan Beyazid III. Welcome to the Princes Islands, an archipelago splattered in the Sea of Marmara like inkspots on the page. Around us, lapis water and Istanbul's Asian shore, impossibly overbuilt, its outlines softened by hazy smog.
Where Istanbul is absurdly crowded, mad, grand and melancholic, its islands are balmy, light with birdsong, stress-free and car-free. They are also a living museum of a city that was. While Constantinople was the capital of three of the greatest empires the world ever saw, its inhabitants were drawn from all over the known world. The New York of the Near East, Constantinople was cosmopolitan, prestigious, polyglot. Life and business were transacted in Greek and Armenian, tongues from all over the Caucasus, Kurdistan and the Turkic lands, Arabic and Albanian, French and Genoese and Ladino - a rich dish of medieval Spanish seasoned with Arabic and Hebrew, the language of Sefardi Jews. Since 1923, Ataturk's "turkification" policy has replaced what came before, in scant consolation for empires lost. Gone, too, are many of the minorities, sent, left or converted to Republic ways. Those that remain choose island life each summer.
The four main Princes Islands, or "Adalar", are the last resort of Istanbul's minorities. Though inhabited all year round, they bloom into delighted life between May and September, when summer houses are opened and apartments rented.
There is a modern hydrofoil service to the islands, but real travellers join the steamer at Sirkeci, under the Topkapi Palace. These ferries are like those on Windermere, but salted and seasoned by sea, strait and cigarettes. Inside, the fug of a bookies and PVC seats the colour of tripe. Out on deck, you find students reading; chums clutching fishing rods and shooting the breeze; couples kissing; day trippers in headscarves or hotpants; waiters pouring tea; peripatetic sellers of embroidered linen and never-win lotto tickets. There's time to space out while you breathe the blessing of clean salt air. As the minarets of the Blue Mosque recede, Asia shades the horizon, a badly drawn line, mauve against the ruffled sea.
The Princes Islands were always a place of internal exile. Power shifts in palaces meant that inconvenient heirs were either strangled (the job of the chief eunuch), imprisoned or exiled. Three hours by oar-powered caique, the islands were home to fishermen, farmers and priests devoted to quiet contemplation, but to a prince they were a social Siberia. Thus, for centuries the islands were synonymous with huzun, the tristesse to which Turks are so attached. Were huzun music, it would sound like Portuguese fado, but in 1849, following the introduction of a steam ferry, the Princes Islands resounded instead to dance music, and became magnets for Istanbul's socialites.
On your ferry today, the first of the inhabited islands hoves into view, shaped like a badly risen cake. White houses are sprinkled around the shore, radio antennae crowd its modest green peak. This is Kinaliada, where Orthodox Armenians feel most at home. Turn your head and there's a jam of coasters and tankers riding at anchor, waiting for the pilot to take them through the Bosphorus and on to the Black Sea. The sea in front of Kinaliada is, if not exactly turquoise, then certainly a lively green. The mood on the boat lifts even higher. Holiday time! Hugs and shouts on the quay. Old folk with old suitcases step slowly ashore. A few hardy kids splash about in the shallows and the boat is flooded with island hoppers. Lads play chicken with the gangplank as you thrum off towards Burgazada.
Burgazada is gorgeous. Cruising towards it, beauty unfolds and seagulls swoon in the ferry's wake. Here and there, an old round church. Wooden villas, some newly painted, others mesmerising ruins, cluster under mossy wooded fields and a tonsured summit that hosts the Metamorfosis monastery. Step off at Burgazada for tost and tea and to meander its steep empty streets till the houses and the bougainvillea peter out and you're in open country. The monastery is a place of pilgrimage for barren women of all religions who come to take its sacred waters. In unkempt gardens, a mule chews and there's a hammock under the fig trees. Back at sea level, there's a smart 1960s lido, which looks a fine place to while away a summer eating blackcurrant ices. You tear yourself from Burgazada to take the boat to Heybeliada.
The face Heybeliada shows first is hairy with pine growing over low cliffs. The island looks like a big bite has been taken out of one side. In this depression nestle smart houses, the odd hotel, a pleasure marina. Watching over all of this, the Monastery of St George, an essay in stern splendour. On Heybeliada, you get about on foot, by bicycle, or by horse-drawn fayton. These queue near the ferry stop, the nags with manure-catching tarps under their hinds, the carriages made of painted wicker under buttoned plush and fringed canopies, their drivers famously sly. You ask for a ride and pay over the odds for a tour that takes in empty bays, public beaches, hot scrubby fields that smell of wild oregano, and a glamorous abandoned sanatorium. The tour ends outside the whitewashed iskele ferry station.
Buyuk means "big" and Buyukada lives up to its name, though in the Princes Islands, big is a relative term. Some of its 14 churches, its mosque and synagogues poke above the palaces that proclaim Buyukada's sense of self-importance, as does a grand twin-domed edifice, built as a hospital for the Crimean wounded, now the Splendid Hotel. As each boat arrives, there's loud emotion as hawkers, touts, lovers, families and friends converge on the main square, around the clock that doesn't work.
The notion of time stood still persists as you stroll Buyukada's avenues. Splendid wooden gingerbread mansions built in Adams Family orientalised art nouveau vie for magnificence. Some are lovingly restored while many have suffered over the years, the victims of family squabbles, economic reverses and cheap internal air travel to the seaside south.
In the modern era, as well as pashas and potentates, Buyukada attracted poets, painters and philosophers, not to mention Trotsky, who lived here in some splendour from 1929 to 1933, while Istanbul was home to 34,000 White Russians escaping his Red Army. Trotsky contented himself with fishing, discovering a new type of rockfish, which he named for Lenin. Russian is no longer heard here, but there remains a sizeable Jewish population who have held fast to their Iberian roots.
As well as retaining their language, Buyukada's Jews still cook the food of their fathers. The oily pastries on Grandma's bezique table are the progenitors of today's Spanish buñuleos, the "Izmir Lokma" advertised near the ferry iskele, an import still seen in Spain as churros, brought here via Izmir, the Smyrna of old. Stroll along Buyukada's tree-lined avenues any evening and you smell leek and lamb albondigas and milk budims cooking, their recipes hardly changed since the 15th century. As with the other islands, you find minorities of minorities, tiny sects of Armenian Catholics, Assyrians and followers from Antioch, and the remnants of a Salonikan church, the congregation's dwindling presence evinced by strains of rebetika music spilling though ancient lace curtains.
Days on Buyukada start slowly. You are wakened by the clop of horses or the ferry's rude parp. The view from your balcony at the Splendid Hotel is splendid indeed, so you watch a boat carve a sedate wake on its way to Heybeliada before tearing yourself away for breakfast. Today, instead of taking breakfast in the hilarious dining room, a short stroll to the Buyukada Pastanesi is in order. You buy a bag of warm, sugary, creamy pastries and take a low chair at the tea house opposite, where the punters will interrupt their gossip for a nice "Good Morning", and you will take tea with your pastries. The world on Recep Koc Street drifts by. A man in a baggy suit wheels his grand-daughter on her Barbie bike. Bales of straw are being delivered to some stables, and fresh cherries and peaches have arrived at the fruiterers.
That's it - a picnic. Bread, fruit, olives, cheeses, a bottle of Sarafin Gallipoli wine and you're off. The bicycle ride along Cankaya Caddesi drifts you past the island's grandest mansions, as well as the beautifully restored Kultur Ev, a museum of fin de siecle island life with the sweetest tea garden. At number 85, a man has turned his front garden into a neat organic nursery. You buy lettuce and tomatoes and puff uphill. Fifteen more minutes and the cool pine forest surrounds you. Day-trippers chatter by in their faytons, so you head off the beaten track. Lunapark, whose funfair departed in the 1960s, is where their tours terminate, and your adventure begins.
Leaving the bikes with the friendly cafe owner, you follow random tracks, jumping over marble boulders and dodging crispy bushes. The forest is big enough to lose yourself in, but the sounds of the sea surround you. Your picnic spot is utterly secluded and commands a view over the Marmara past the other islands, and as far as Istanbul.
After your shady lunch, the sea calls. On this side of the island, there is very little water traffic, so Yoruk Ali (literally, Strong Lumberjack Ali) has built a bathing platform. You clamber down hundreds of steep steps and pay 10YTL for towel space on the concrete. There's a good old-fashioned party going on - families cavorting, kids dive-bombing, heavy petting, all to the amplified sounds of Turkish chart music. Great unforced fun, lubricated by cold beers and warm sun. When the sun dips, fellow bathers are picked up in top-heavy day boats and you climb back up top for the freewheel back into town.
That evening, sundowners on your balcony stretch until Istanbul sparkles, lit like endless strings of pearls against a cocktail dress. Fish dinner at Milto is a pantomime. Tray after tray of hot and cold mezze are brought by Buttons as Cinderella smiles from the kitchen, and the ugly sisters on the table next to you demolish a massive sea bass. You choose turbot and raki, the local firewater, then a movie at the open-air cinema. This is moviegoing as it should be - warm air, cold drinks, kids shouting abuse at Tom Cruise.
The next morning, you cruise back to Istanbul on a sea of washed silk, and a clutch of sunburnt music students congregate at the stern and hum an old love song for a long dead Sultana. The sun blushes bright and at every island more commuters get on, newspapers and pastries in hand. As the rhythmic architecture of the Blue Mosque tumbles slowly into view, the song's chorus is taken up by all out on deck. Loving their huzun, members of Istanbul's minorities smile softly and return to their day's exile in the city.
Getting there
British Airways (0870 8509850, britishairways.com) flies Heathrow-Istanbul from £197.20 return inc tax. IDO Ferries (ido.com.tr) run up to hourly from Sirkeci and Kabatas in European Istanbul, Kadikoy and Bostanci on the Asian shore. Timetables are impenetrable, but sailings are posted above the ticket booths. A jeton in any direction costs 2YTL.
Where to stay
Splendid Hotel, Buyukada (+216 382 6950, Splendidhotel.net), nicely eccentric, around 200YTL in season. Ideal Otel Pansiyon, Buyukada (+382 6857), yet more eccentric, an unpainted wooden mansion, very atmospheric and great fun for the adventurous. Halki Palas, Heybeli (+351 0025, Merithotels.com) up to 400YTL in season, the smartest option on the islands.
Where to eat
Buyukada has a slew of fish restaurants on Gulistan Caddesi. Milto, Milano and Ali Baba are all reliable, around 50YTL per head for a fishy blow out with raki or wine. Konak, 47 Recep Koc Cad, offers home cooking in a cafeteria setting; lovely food, nice terrace, around 15YTL per head. Buyukada Pastanesi, 34 Recep Koc Cad, sells warm fresh breads and pastries, 6am-7.30pm daily. Turn right from the ferry on Heybeli and among the Greek fish restaurants, Halki (+351 0202) has the best name, around 50YTL per head. Burgaz offers fewer options, but red-painted Babar, left from the ferry, is lovely for seafood mezze. Ergun is the cafe hangout in front of the ferry; tea and tost, a speciality. Agree the price of any fish before you buy it!
Getting around
Hire dodgy bicycles on any island from the many bisiklet shops for around 20YTL a day. Haggle with the faytons and demand to see the printed price tariffs (fiyatler). A tour on any island costs around 25YTL.
Further information
Turkish Tourist Office: 020-7839 7778, brochure line 09001 887755, gototurkey.co.uk.
Country code: 00 90.
Flight time London-Istanbul: 3½-4hrs.
£1 = 2.85 New Turkish lira.
