Dolmabahçe Palace
Trip Start
Nov 09, 2007
1
10
92
Trip End
Feb 03, 2008
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Istanbul,
Turkey
Friday, November 16, 2007
Dolmabahçe is a European style palace and truly opulent. As we approached the entrance we were told by the guard that we were not allowed to explore the palace in our own time, but rather, we were obliged to join a guided tour. To be fair, there was no additional charge, but I really don't like a guided tour. There were about 50 of us in the 'English' tour. I think there were only about 10 of us that were native English speakers. There were lots of Italians and Germans, Japanese and other nationalities, including some Arabic speakers. I felt sorry that they all had to have an English tour, but I guess it's a 'common' language.
The rooms were very lavishly decorated and the main ceremonial hall is unbelievably huge. The chandelier is apparently the largest in Europe.
The main part of the palace and the harem are operated as 2 separate tours. Between these we had a chance for a sit down and cup of coffee at the cafe within the palace walls. It was an interesting experience.
Outside the palace
The man operating the cafe was incredibly fussy about the arrangement of the chairs. SO much so that he was Basil Fawlty like running around straightening them and returning them to the conforming pattern. AT one stage a woman stood up to stretch and he straightened the chair underneath her without her realising so that she almost fell off when she sat back down. At our table we had the temerity to move one of the chairs to the other side of the table (so that there was one chair on each side of the table, rather than the designated pattern which had two chairs one one side of the table, one at each end and none on the fourth side). Well, this sent the man into meltdown. When Maggie got up to choose an ice-cream he raced to our table, while the rest of us were still sitting at the table and removed Maggie's chair. When he realised that she had selected an ice-cream herself he then raced over to the ice-cream freezer and spent the next five minutes (I kid you not) rearranging the ice-creams in the freezer) It was all quite bizarre and as we left we made sure that our chairs were left as messy as possible. I left my chair some ten feet away from where it belonged. We had the opinion that this would help the man to face his demons. Maybe. On the way out Georgie was lucky enough to find a 20 lira note lying on the ground.The harem tour gave us a chance to see how the Sultans lived in the years immediately preceding their demise. It was quite revealing. The Sultan's apartment, as you might expect, is the plushest - largest bed, richest furnishings etc. Next in the pecking order is the Sultan's mother. Then comes the Sultan's wives. Officially there were four of them, but also many concubines. Each wife had an identical apartment, presumably to keep everything fair and not show favouritism.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the palace, for me, was the area that Attaturk lived in in his final years. The room where he died is clearly the most revered and was festooned with flowers. I'm not sure if it is always this way or because it was only 5 days since the anniversary of his death 69 years ago. Either way it was a quite touching reminder of the reverence with which Attaturk is viewed here in Turkey.
After our palace visit Jess went with girls to visit Taksim square and I headed off on a different adventure...
