A&E Abroad: Istanbul. September 17

We had some serious time pressures today. We planned to get a boat cruise down the Bosphorus so we could see the different sides of the straight from the water, at about 2.30pm but also needed to explore Topkapi Palace before this. We had read a lot that the palace takes around 5 hours to explore which meant we had to really get going early. We left at 10ish and got coffee on the way, we got the tram over Galata bridge to the Palace and went straight in, with no queues really at all. The palace was similar to others we'd seen, laid out like a complex with many rooms and buildings coming off central areas. We decided to head straight to the main ones, leaving smaller ones for extra time we had. It was pretty huge and that doesn't include the Harem which we still had to cover. But we made it through every where! There were long queues to get into treasury rooms, which we waited in and made it through. We saw old old old old swords and relics that we couldn't believe hadn't already turned to dust (they were so old!). We also saw Prophet Muhammad's beard. Well strands of it, kept in sacred vessels that were way more impressive than the beard strands. It was actually pretty interesting because there was heaps of information on the religion and the Prophet as you walked through all the rooms. The rooms also were insanely beautiful. The design style was much more elegant and alluring than those of other European royalty. The tiling was amazing and they had huge rooms simply for tea with guests.

Tea room

The gardens too were so well manicured, if we had more time it would have been so nice to relax in them between visiting the rooms.

We also visited the Imperial Harem of the Ottoman Empire, the private apartments of the Sultan, his wives and servants. The Harem encompasses nearly 400 rooms of which some we could visit. We went through the rooms of the Eunuchs, and their hamam which were on the bottom level of the building and the more lavish rooms on the upper levels for the more higher authorities such as the Sultans immediate family and entrusted people. The entire Harem was decorated pretty amazingly and each room we entered had impressive tiling and decoration to match the rest of the palace. The courtyard off the Harem also had a great view across to the other European side.

We ended our tour through Topkapi in the chefs quarters, where every day they would prepare endless amounts of meals for all the people who resided in the palace. Also they made much baklava. Yurm.

Leaving the palace we had some time to grab a quick sesame bagel thing and head to our boat to buy tickets and board. We then spent the next two hours in the lovely sunshine cruising up the Bosphorus and seeing different parts of Istanbul to what we'd explored on land, as well as the massive bridge that connects the Asian continent to Europe.