Üsküdar, Istanbul, Turkey

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Üsküdar, once known as Scutari, is a large district on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus in metropolitan Istanbul.

For visitors to Istanbul, Üsküdar is important for its mosques and its transport possibilities.

The ferry docks are prominent all along the shore of the Üsküdar plaza: the IDO ferries, the TurYol ferries and the Dentur Avrasya ferries going to Eminönü, Karaköy, Kabatas and Besiktas.

Just inland from the ferry docks are numerous bus and minibus stops and taxi stands good for trips north and south along the Bosphorus shore, and eastward into Istanbul's Anatolian suburbs.

Not too far south along the shore is the Harem Otogar, with intercity buses to all of Anatolian Turkey and beyond.

At the moment the expansive plaza of Üsküdar is filled with fences, temporary barriers, trucks and excavation equipment constructing the huge Marmaray railway project which will bring a train line beneath the Bosphorus, connecting the European and Asian shores of Turkey by rail for the first time.

The mosques include the Mihrimah Sultan Camii (1547), a work designed the great Mimar Sinan for Mihrimah Sultan, the daughter of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent. The mosque is on the north side of the plaza, and north of the mosque itself is its Dar-üs Sifa, or Health Center. You enter this building by a doorway that could have come from Seljuk Turkish times, but when you get inside you find a shiny, ultra-modern up-to-the-minute medical clinic—a wonderful continuation of usage of an ancient building with modern technology.

On the southern side of the plaza is the Yeni Valide Camii (or Valide-i Cedid Camii, "New Mosque of the Queen Mother," 1710) a later Ottoman mosque that's part of a full mosque complex (külliye) including several other charitable service buildings. The Queen Mother of the mosque's name, by the way, was Gülnüs Emetullah Hatun, mother of Sultan Ahmet III.

Inland up a hill is the charming small Tiled Mosque (Çinili Cami), well worth a visit to see its exquisite Iznik colored tiles, especially if you have not visited the even more exquisite Rüstem Pasha Mosque near the Egyptian (Spice) Bazaar in Eminönü.

Head south from Üsküdar to reach Haydarpasa Station, Istanbul's terminus for Asian trains, and Kadiköy, a popular suburb easily reached by ferry from Eminönü and Karaköy.