Breathtaking Beauty.  Tremendous History.

Istanbul - Topkapi Palace

Versailles, the White House, etc., have breathtaking gardens but otherwise relatively inward facing views of cities. But at Topkapi, the Sultans could see the world.

When the Ottomans captured Constantinople in 1453, they built a temporary palace in the center of town. Meanwhile, they started building Topkapi Palace where the Greeks once had their acropolis, on the main hill overlooking the harbor, the Bosporus, etc. In 1465, the Ottoman Emperor moved to Topkapi Palace. It would be the palace of the Ottomans until 1853, when they moved to another one. The Ottoman Empire ended in 1923. In 1924, the new Turkish government made the palace a museum.

The palace has four courtyards one behind the other. Historically, each courtyard was more and more restricted in who could go there. From the Imperial gate fronting the first courtyard to the inner gate where one enters the second courtyard is 800 feet of pathways and lawn.  

Just before the next gate is gift shop and an automated ticket stand. It was very easy to buy our two five-day Istanbul Museum passes for 85 TL apiece; that’s about $60 total. They would get us into most of the monuments, but only once per monument.

The ticket stand area had several tourist guides looking for business. But we decided to tour Topkapi on our own. 

The inner gate had European style fairy castle conical towers. We walked through, showed our tickets and went through security and metal detectors. Right away, we were in the next courtyard. Topkapi Palace, we learned quickly, is like Indian palaces. Both are courtyard centric; the living and work quarters are either in stand-alone pavilions (called kiosks) in the courtyards or surround the courtyard. In European palaces, it’s kind of the opposite: the courtyard is in front, the main building is in the center, and the gardens are in back. These buildings are one or two stories high, and are much more human in scale than, say, Versailles or Buckingham Palace. 

At the back of Topkapi is a fantastic viewpoint offering a breathtaking panorama of the Golden Horn, Bosporus and Sea of Marmara; we see both Europe at left and Asia at right, blue seas and low mountains, solid land and islands.

Versailles, the White House, etc., have breathtaking gardens but otherwise relatively inward facing views of cities. But at Topkapi, the Sultans could see the world. 

We bought coffee from the Museum Coffee shop. Once again, “merhaba…” (hello) and “cok tessekur edermin” (thank you) and “gule gule” (bye) evinced warm smiles and “where are you from?”

We bought coffee from the Museum Coffee shop. Once again, “merhaba…” (hello) and “cok tessekur edermin” (thank you) and “gule gule” (bye) evinced warm smiles and “where are you from?”

On the way out at the gift shop in the first courtyard, I bought a 480-page pocket book entitled Istanbul. It’s full of history, facts, photos and practical information; we’ll put it straight to good use.

One of the sections is the Harem, quarters for the Sultan’s women, prospective women and his mother. It was forbidden to almost all men other than the eunuchs. The pavilions and buildings include the treasury, audience room, armory, etc.

The Treasury had fascinating relics. Unfortunately, photography was prohibited. In any case, the relics included Moses’ staff, David’s sword, the arm and part of the skull of John the Baptist, parts of the beard of Mohammed and various keys to the Kaaba in Mecca. It also held a beautiful 2’x2’ mother of pearl model of the Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem. The armory was replete with swords, maces, bows, chainmail, armor, and even horse face armor. We joked that the cool knights probably wore their chainmail helmets backward.

We spent several hours at Topkapi, walking from one end to the other, but we never did get to the Harem. We probably missed half of what was there.

We spent several hours at Topkapi, walking from one end to the other, but we never did get to the Harem. We probably missed half of what was there.

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