Miss Travelette

Me in the garden of Dolmabahçe Palace

This is an answer to the question "where to go in Istanbul..." 

I've lived in Istanbul more than 20 years; seen many places, been to many palaces, churches, mosques, parks, and many further, but the only favourite of mine has always been the Dolmabahçe Palace (Dolmabahçe Sarayı). - (If you want to get into the palace and see it, you will have to wait for probably an hour or more in the queue, but I assure you, it's worth it!)

Its unique architecture, and its location make it one of the best places in Istanbul and make it worth seeing for the tourists. I have been to the palace more than 4 or 5 times; accompanying my tourist friends most of the time, and I never get bored of it. - It's main importance comes from being our leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's home for his last years, although it had been used by a couple of other leaders the Ottoman Empire had.

I recently visited the well-known tulip heaven we have in İstanbul, and it definitely was worth seeing!

Tulips remind me of Holland all the time, and seeing so many tulips together made me feel like I've been in Holland for a while, once more.

If you ever consider visiting the historically rich Turkish city İstanbul, I offer you to come before the summer, I mean in the middle of the spring, so that you may go and see those tulips with their extremely well-organised pattern.

Pinky red tulips from the garden - photo taken by me

There is a very famous plantation area in İstanbul, which is called 'Emirgan Korusu*' and the tulips I mention here are located in this area, distributed everywhere in a greatly wonderful order! Colours are dancing with each other and the sizes of the tulips are just surprisingly at the same height. No mistake can ever be done in this huge garden, they are absolutely perfect!

According to the historical information we have got, the first tulips were owned by the Ottoman Empire, and after the Ottomans gave some of these tulips out as a present to Holland, Holland started planting them. Now they are famous with their undeniably beautiful tulips and tulip gardens, while we have a few tulip gardens and no fame with tulips.