ISTANBUL: Topkapı Palace and Kaşıkçı Elması, the 4th biggest diamond in the world
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| The entrance of Topkapı Palace |
Tourists visit Istanbul mostly in April and May, as it
will be too hot later in June, July and August. I can understand that because even
I, as a local, don’t like going into the city centre in summer. So the best
time to visit Istanbul is already over (People generally start thinking about
south parts where they can enjoy the sun after spring – these three months will
be the busiest time in south – Antalya, Marmaris, Kuşadası, Fethiye, Bodrum are
the most popular ones). But if you’re planning to visit Istanbul, you still
have the September – which will be a bit darker than April or May, but still
there will be sunny days but with lower temperatures! And in Istanbul, there is
a tradition for visitors from outside the city or the country – seeing Topkapı Palace...
Topkapı Palace was where Kanuni Sultan Süleyman, the ruler
of that times, who is known as being a padishah (a name given to Ottoman
rulers) who depended on laws all the time, and was the most humanistic of all, the
rightful one who believed in forgiveness (even in an empire where people are
not to be forgiven), had lived with his famous Russian cariye (a kind of female
slave who had to do whatever the sultan asks for), and wife later on, named
Hürrem (meaning “a woman who smiles all the time” in Ottoman Turkish). This
name was given her by Sultan when she was his new bed partner, right at the beginning.
Her name was Alexandra before she was captured by the Ottomans in a war.
According to some sources, Hürrem was kept in Topkapı
Palace from the first day, but as my friend told me, Hürrem and their family
lived in another palace near Beyazıt beforehand, and Sultan came to Topkapı Palace
every day for the state affairs, and as a result of Hürrem’s endless love and
longing for Sultan, she wanted to move the entire palace to where her lover,
the Sultan worked during the day, to Topkapı. The entire Harem (where the sultan’s
and other palace men’s women, Cariyes used to live and serve for their men
and where no man could enter except for the Sultan himself) and Selamlık (in
where the males lived) was moved to this new palace. For that reason, of course,
the entire palace had to be re-designed for the needs of palace people.
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| the second garden |
Basically, the Palace has 3 gardens, and countless
buildings inside, which are linked to each other. The first garden was used for
celebrations and such other things when people from outside the palace were accepted as guests. The second garden belonged to those who lived in the
palace, servants, cariyes, sultan’s assistants and many more. Legends say that
there had been love stories going on inside this garden, cariyes meeting with
their new lovers, sultan’s wives meeting with people from Selamlık to make
plans in order to make sure that their sons will be the next sultan, and the
most popular one is that Kanuni’s daughter from Hürrem, Mihrimah Sultan used to meet with the
famous architect Mimar Sinan in this garden on that days – the girl was about
17 years old when the architect was over 40 according to the sources, and he was just an
architect, not someone who could get married with a sultan’s daughter! Finally,
the third garden behind the walls - A part of this biggest garden, which belonged
to only Sultan then, is now used as a road in the city, but a little part of it
still remains inside the palace borders.
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| Sultan's private garden with a pool |
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| the Bosphorus view from sultan's private garden |
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| The church |
When you get in, you will see a museum (an old church)
in the first garden. This was built by Constantine when he had the city Constantinople
inside his hands. You can see all the Protestant signs on this church’s facade.
The palace was decided to be built on that area by Fatih Sultan Mehmet, who was
the last conqueror of Constantinople, but the church remained still and no one
touched it since then. The church had started to be used as a kind of stocking
area (Only the basement). Church still remains as it was built there, and can
be visited - it is a museum now, but I couldn’t see the interior design, because
there was a construction going on inside the building, which will not be
finished for a long while at least.
We had to spend more than 2 hours inside the palace as
there were loads loads to see – and time was not enough to see them all!!!!
Long queues can make you depressed while waiting, because some are really
really long and I’d recommend you to see the ones with no long queues first,
because an hour later, you might see another long queue there! Tourists visit
the rooms with the directions of their guides; this is why there are long
queues in front of some doors. You choose the others beforehand, and if you
have time left, go and see the other rooms – hopefully this time with not long
queues...
What else you can see in the palace is clothes left
from that era, even skirts when men used to wear long dresses and cardigans,
but no trousers. A sultan had started to wear trousers later in the history,
and that caused the others follow him; this trousers can also be seen in the
exhibition part. Keep that in mind that most of the clothes in that exhibition
are the ones used on special days like celebrations. Daily clothes were much
less pretentious.
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| Kaşıkçı Elması |
And of course the most important part of the palace: the
Jewelries Exhibition. As most of visitors already know, Kaşıkçı Elması (Kaşıkçı
Diamond) lays under the roofs of that palace. Kaşıkçı Elması is known as the
4th biggest diamond in the world, consisting of one big piece only. The first
two belong to the queen, and are in England at the moment, the third biggest
one is in somewhere in east, and the fourth biggest one is this one. Here you
can see a picture of it – I had to google it to find the picture because taking
photos are not allowed in this part of the palace. Don’t leave the palace without seeing
this beautiful diamond; it’s kept with the other jewelries in a room behind a glass.
Another exhibition going on is a collection of ancient
clocks, from the years between 1400 and 1700; French, German and English made
clocks, all reflecting their country of origins. So sad it was not allowed to
take photos of the clocks inside but I took a photo of an interesting one
secretly (!!!) – the one you can see on the left.
In another exhibition, you can see the official
portraits of sultans, Padishahs and their sons, also named “sultans”
like their fathers are, with their long beards, and traditional turbans on
their heads, long dress-like clothes and the similar looks on their faces…
The kitchens has been in construction for the last 2
years, so it is a shame that visitors cannot see this huge part of the palace,
because Ottomans were also famous with their cuisine – mostly used fruits
instead of oil in their cooking – which was not usual in other parts of the world
then. And Ottoman cuisine had the most interesting desserts you cannot ever
taste in somewhere else – well, you can still try them in Turkish restaurants
if you wish!
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| You can see a few examples of tablets written in Ottoman Turkish |
In Dolmabahçe Palace (another popular attraction), you
can mostly see the rooms inside the palace, see where people had lived, where
they had slept. But in contrast to that, in Topkapı Palace, you can hardly see
any rooms, just a few small ones where people used to come and go, mostly for
meetings, but not bedrooms at all. I’ve always wanted to see where the sultans
and their wives or lovers slept – but this is not possible for now at least. It
is said that soon these rooms will be open to visitors!
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| Dîvân-ı Hümâyûn |
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| Interior design of Dîvân-ı Hümâyûn |
Another building you can see is Dîvân-ı
Hümâyûn, where the state affairs were discussed without the
Sultan’s attendance. Sultan wanted it to be that way because he knew that if he
was in that room during the meetings, no one would be able to declare their own
opinions as they are afraid to make the sultan angry – making the sultan angry
meant to be killed immediately (the sultan would command his hangman to cut
your throat!), and no one would say a word about it. Therefore, the meetings
were held without him, but the sultan wanted to make sure that everything is
alright inside the room and nothing useless is discussed, so he asked his
architecture to build a window inside, on the wall so that he could secretly
watch what’s going on in the room behind that window. As no one could have a clear vision of who is behind that window,
sometimes the sultan sent his assistants to listen to what’s going on inside,
but no one knew if it was him or someone else - so had to be careful about what
they say anyway.
A few other sultans had also lived in Topkapı Palace
after Kanuni Sultan Süleyman, but later on, the royal Ottoman family and all
the people living in the palace moved to Dolmabahçe Palace, where Atatürk, the
leader of Turkish Republic had died.
The useful info is below:
How to get there: There are a few ways you can use.
From airport, you can use the metro to arrive at Aksaray, and from Aksaray take
the tram to go to Sultanahmet or Gülhane. Sultanahmet is closer to the palace,
so I’d recommend you this – and you will see the signs to the palace from
there, it is 10-minute walk from Sultanahmet.
Most tourists use Taksim as a start point to go
everywhere, so if you are starting your journey from Taksim, take the T4 bus
which directly goes to Sultanahmet, and then walk towards the palace.
I don’t think any of you will be travelling from the
Asian part of Istanbul anyway but if that is the case, then go to Sirkeci by
boat (or use one of the bridges on Bosphorus, which is not recommended at
all!!!! It will take more than 2 hours to get there by this way!), and from
Sirkeci take the tram again to Sultanahmet, or Gülhane if you miss the Sultanahmet
stop.
What else around: The tourist attractions around are
Sultanahmet Mosque (a very famous one, even can be seen in some Hollywood
movies) and Hagia Sophia Museum, once a mosque and a cathedral later on, now
just a museum which looks like a mosque – no praying inside.
Pricing: As I know, one ticket to the palace is 25
liras, but there are a few other options like museum cards which you can buy
once and can use in lots of other museums. For local people Müze Kart can be a
good choice, pay 30 liras and you will be able to enter almost all the museums
around Turkey twice without paying an extra money. I think foreigners must be
also able to buy these cards – so ask to a man inside the little bus in front
of the palace – you will see the Museum Card label on that bus.
Museum Card costs 30 liras only.
Museum Card costs 30 liras only.
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