Galata-i İstanbul - The Galata Tower - Megalos Pyrgos

Galata Kulesi;

İstanbul'un Galata semtinde bulunan bir kule. 528 yılında inşa edilen yapı, şehrin önemli sembolleri arasındadır. İstanbul Boğazı ve Haliç, kuleden panoramik olarak izlenebilmektedir. UNESCO, 2013'te kuleyi Dünya Mirası Geçici Listesi'ne dahil etti.

Galata Kulesi dünyanın en eski kulelerinden biri olup, Bizans İmparatoru Anastasius tarafından 528 yılında Fener Kulesi olarak inşa ettirilmiştir.^[2] 1204 yılındaki IV. Haçlı Seferi'nde geniş çapta tahrip edilen kule, daha sonra 1348 yılında "İsa Kulesi" adıyla yığma taşlar kullanılarak Cenevizliler tarafından Galata surlarına ek olarak yeniden yapılmıştır. 1348 yılında yeniden yapıldığında kentin en büyük binası olmuştur.

The Galata Tower;

called Christea Turris (the Tower of Christ in Latin) by the Genoese — is a medieval stone tower in the Galata/Karaköy quarter of Istanbul, Turkey, just to the north of the Golden Horn's junction with the Bosphorus. One of the city's most striking landmarks, it is a high, cone-capped cylinder that dominates the skyline and offers a panoramic vista of Istanbul's historic peninsula and its environs.

The nine-story tower is 66.90 m (219.5 ft) (62.59 m (205.3 ft) without the ornament on top, 51.65 m (169.5 ft) at the observation deck), and was the city's tallest structure when it was built. The elevation at ground level is 35 m (115 ft) above sea-level. The tower has an external diameter of 16.45 m (54.0 ft) at the base, an inside diameter of 8.95 m (29.4 ft), and walls that are 3.75 m (12.3 ft) thick.

There is a restaurant and café on its upper floors which command a magnificent view of Istanbul and the Bosphorus. Also located on the upper floors is a night club which hosts a Turkish show. There are two operating elevators that carry visitors from the lower level to the upper levels.

The upper section of the tower with the conical cap was slightly modified in several restorations during the Ottoman period when it was used as an observation tower for spotting fires.The Romanesque style tower was built as Christea Turris (Tower of Christ) in 1348 during an expansion of the Genoese colony in Constantinople. Galata Tower was the tallest building in Istanbul at 219.5 ft (66.9 m) when it was built in 1348. It was built to replace the old Tower of Galata, an original Byzantine tower named Megalos Pyrgos (English: Great Tower) which controlled the northern end of the massive sea chain that closed the entrance to the Golden Horn. That tower was on a different site and was largely destroyed in 1203, during the Fourth Crusade of 1202–1204.