After Hagia Sophia we continued walking to visit Topkapi Palace. Topkapi Palace is the worlds oldest palace that continues to stand. With its several courtyards it’s a typical Turkish palace, which served the Ottoman Empire for centuries. This fountain in the front of the main gate of Topkapi Palace was built by Sultan Ahmet III in 18th century.
When you enter the gate, first building you see is Hagia Irene church and museum.
This gate leads to the Second courtyard and is called The Gate of Salutation.
A model of the inner part of the Palace. Here you can see how spacious it actually is.
Turkish divan was a place where all decisions were made by Ottoman government.
This place is really amazing. Even though it is overcrowded, you cannot stay irelevant at its greatness. The entrances to the interior rooms are so luxurios with all that golden details.
There is a plenty of spacious walking areas with beautiful flower gardens.
If you are planning to visit this Palace I recommend to spend at least half a day here. It is full of tourist all the time and the waiting lines for entering the interior spaces are very long, and we could not managed to visit all we wanted. So be patient and plan to leave enough time for everything in advance. Most facilities of this complex are turned into exhibitions of different Ottoman items such as kitchen equipment, porcelain, clocks, weapons and also famous Spoonmaker diamond, the worlds fourth largest diamond.
The position of the Palace is perfect with this wonderful view overlooking the Bosphorus.
We ended our tour with lemon şerbet – great and refreshing turkish drink, the similar one they used to drink in Ottoman era. It was usually consumed for celebrations and special occasiones.
After all day walking we were so exhausted but that didn’t stop us and we went on Turkish dinner that night. It was an interesting night with a lot of music, dance, performances and a bit of Turkish traditional cuisine. Even though I had a nice time I expected a bit more.
All in all this day was absolutely incredible. All this fascinating places and buildings were definitely worth visiting. A lot of history, amazing architecture, beautiful places and a bit of Turkish dance on the top of it. What more you can ask for?
Read more about my Turkish weekend escape on the blog soon..