About Galata Tower
The Genoese raised the tower in 1348, when they expanded the colony they kept in Galata, and called it the Tower of Christ. It served as a lookout post, a fire-watching station and a prison, and it is what remains of the neighborhood's medieval citadel, almost entirely demolished in the 19th century.
The balcony, at about 52 meters, wraps all the way around: domes of the peninsula on one side, the Asian shore on the other. Tradition says that in 1638 Hezarfen Ahmed Çelebi jumped from here and flew across the Bosphorus. Historians doubt it, but it is hard to look out from up there without picturing the scene.
