The Maid­en’s Tow­er, or in Turk­ish Kız Kule­si, locat­ed in the Asian part of Istan­bul, on a small island in the Bospho­rus, has become one of the city’s most pop­u­lar attrac­tions. Accord­ing to leg­end, the tow­er got its name due to the fact that the daugh­ter of the Sul­tan lived in it, whom he want­ed to pro­tect from a dead­ly prophe­cy. Accord­ing to one ver­sion, the prince saved the girl on her birth­day: he sucked out the poi­son of a snake that attacked the Sul­tan’s daugh­ter.
The light­house on the tow­er appeared only after the cap­ture of Con­stan­tino­ple by the Turks in 1453, and before that the build­ing was used as a watch­tow­er. The best view of the tow­er and the light­house is from the pier in Usku­dar, where you can have a roman­tic sun­set pic­nic.