Dolmabahçe Palace, Istanbul, Turkey

One of the chandeliers

Ah....finally! The Turkey posts had come to an end. I don't know how many posts I did on Turkey! I don't know who is more relief of that fact: my readers or myself? Anyway, this is a nice ending as the last post will be about Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, the last place we visited before flying back to Japan on that day.


The gardens

I had written in one of my earlier posts that we had tried to visit Dolmabahçe Palace while we were in the first leg of our Turkey trip. However, we chose the wrong day. The Palace was closed, so we could only take pictures of the front gate.


The Crystal staircase

There are two sections: The ceremonial suites and the harem. You can go to each section separately or combine them. You have to join a tour group, you cannot wander off alone. However, as all tours are, they were so fast, it was impossible to pay attention to the tour guide and at the same time, fully appreciate the rooms. So I gave up listening to him and since I am always at the back and I cannot hear him properly, so I turned my attention to the rooms and clicked away.


The Crystal Staircase, long view


The crystal staircase, wide view

This is one of the grandest views of the palace, the famous crystal staircase. It was impressive. The Sultan Abdul Mecit decided to move from the understated Topkapi Palace to this far more grand, opulent palace in 1856. It was designed by the architect of the Paris Opera so it was very European in style. It is times like this that I really wished for a wider lense!


One of the rooms in the ceremonial suites

It is certainly very over the top, every part of the room is lavishly decorated. The chandeliers were beautiful, especially in rooms where the curtains were partly drawn, so the chandeliers were the only source of light. Nearly every room had one, the grandest of which I think had to be the one in the crystal staircase.


The decorated ceiling

Yes, remember to look up or you will miss the decorations on the ceilings!



A close up of one of the chandeliers.



Imagine if this staircase was in your house.....



The grand hall....I don't know what it is called but it is grand! You can't fully appreciate the spaciousness of this particular hall because of my lense's limitation but trust me.



Now this really reminds me of some fairytale story.


The harem-cariyeler

Now we move unto the harem-cariyeler rooms....the living quarters.



The rooms are divided into the bedrooms and also rooms to entertained guests. Still very grand, no?


Atatürk's living quarters

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk stayed and passed away in Dolmabahçe Palace on NOv 10 1938. All the clocks in the palace stop at 9.05 am, the time when he passed away.



One of the bedrooms. Imagine washing those silk bedsheets! There was also a clock museum and a crystal pavilion within the palace grounds which you would have to pay extra to go into. We had some trouble going into the pavilion but we sorted it out. Unfortunately, it cost us some valuable time and the pavilion itself was under repair so it wasn't so nice to look at. If I knew....



Finally, before I end the Turkey posts, this is a picture of the interior of the Istanbul train station. We took the night train from Ankara to Istanbul and on the morning when we arrived it was raining, much to our dismay. We had plan to visit the palace right after we arrive and then rush to the airport to board our plane. Thank god, the rain receeded and we had a tiring but enjoyable tour of the palace.

The End

For more pics of Dolmabahçe Palace, please visit my Flickr album....though I had put up most of them on this blog.