Turkey Guide
İstanbul
Dolmabahçe Palace
Address: Beşiktaş
Opening time: Daily except Mon & Thurs 9am–4pm
Price: Selâmlik 12YTL, Harem 8YTL
The Dolmabahçe Palace is the largest and most sumptuous of all the palaces on the Bosphorus, with an impressive 600-metre-long waterside frontage. Built in the nineteenth century by various members of the Balian family, it's not so much magnificent as grotesque, an excessive display of ostentatious wealth suggesting that good taste suffered along with the fortunes of the Ottoman Empire.
The palace lies on the site of the harbour from which Mehmet the Conqueror launched his attack on Constantinople. The harbour was completely filled with stones on the order of Ahmet I at the beginning of the seventeenth century (dolmabahçe means "filled garden") and later became a shoreside grove of small palaces and pavilions, set aside for imperial use. These were demolished to make way for Sultan Abdül-Mecid's new enterprise: a palace to replace Topkapı as the imperial residence of the Ottoman sultans. It was built by Armenian architect Karabet Balian and his son Nikoğos between 1843 and 1856 and, as is often pointed out on the guided tour, everything you see coloured yellow is gold. The decor is a virtual assault on the senses, but it's worth trying to ignore the worst of the excesses and concentrate on the (slightly) less vulgar palace highlights, such as the inlaid parquet floors, translucent pink-alabaster imperial baths or the famous double staircase with crystal balusters.
The palace is divided into selâmlik and harem by the 36-metre-high throne room (double the height of the rest of the rooms), held up by 56 elaborate columns. The ceremonies conducted here were accompanied by an orchestra playing European marches and watched by women of the harem through the kafes, grilles behind which women were kept hidden even in the days of Westernization and reform. The four-tonne chandelier in the throne room, one of the largest ever made, with 750 bulbs, was a present from Queen Victoria. Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, died here in his private apartment in 1938.
In the east wing of the palace, the former apartments of the heir to the throne house the Museum of Fine Arts (Resim ve Heykel Müzesi; Wed– Sun 10am–4pm; free), usually entered from the Kaymakamlık building, which used to house the palace staff, around 300m further along the main road from the Dolmabahçe entrance. The best of the collection dates from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and gives an intriguing insight into the lifestyle and attitudes of the late Ottoman Turks.