Category: Adventures Abroad

Our final afternoon in Istanbul began with a visit to Turkey’s #1 tourist attraction. What? you ask, didn’t you already visit Hagia Sophia in the morning? It turns out that the Grand Bazaar claimed to be #1 in Turkey, and in the world, in 2014, with over 91 million visitors, though Hagia Sophia was back on top by 2019, according to the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet Daily News.

The Grand Bazaar, or in Turkish Kapalıçarşı, meaning “covered market”, is located in the heart of Istanbul, to the west of Hagia Sophia and Sultanahmet Square. As I recall we had to walk some way through a maze of pedestrian-only streets to get there, such as the one in the picture below.

The Grand Bazaar has been around in some form since shortly after the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, when Mehmed the Conqueror undertook to stimulate the economy by building a market called the Bedesten near his Old Palace. Over the centuries it continued to grow, with new additions and the absorption of other markets, until the early 19th century, when it began to decline as a result of the inundation of cheap goods from Europe associated with the Industrial Revolution. However, in modern times it has recovered and today is a thriving complex, employing 26,000 people, with with 61 covered streets and over 4,000 shops, selling all manner of goods. Modern shopping malls may have more conveniences, but the Grand Bazaar has atmosphere.

The Grand Bazaar is a daunting labyrinth. It’s easy to get lost in there, and in order to avoid being late to our next destination, Attila made us promise to rendezvous after an hour at an appointed location near the entrance. But Sandie was late arriving at the rendezvous point, and I began to fear that she had been kidnapped by janissaries and spirited away to some pasha’s harem. We sent out search parties, but it was impossible to find anyone in the teeming interior of the bazaar. Luckily she showed up just before we had to call off the search and abandon her to her fate. Having rounded up Sandie, we boarded the bus and sped off to our final destination for the afternoon, the Dolmabahçe Palace.

The reforming Sultan Abdülmecid I started building the Dolmabahçe Palace in 1843 because he wanted something more modern and trendy than the Topkapı – something that would impress his European rivals. Indeed he sought to outdo and overawe them, and in so doing helped to precipitate the ruin of the Ottoman Empire, though he did not live to see it.

Dolmabahçe was not the first palace to be built on the shores of the Bosphorus, but it was the largest. It supplanted an earlier Topkapı-like complex called the Beşiktaş Waterfront Palace, which was demolished to make room for it. The design was entrusted, as usual, to the Armenian Balyan family of court architects. Heavily influenced by European models, it incorporated elements of Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassical styles, blending them with traditional Ottoman architecture. For in one particular respect Dolmabahçe remained fully anchored in Ottoman tradition: it continued to enforce strict segregation of the sexes. The southern (or western) wing, the Mabeyn-i Hümâyûn, or Selamlık, was for men, the northern (or eastern) wing, the Harem-i Hümâyûn, or Seraglio, was for the women – except, of course, that the Sultan’s quarters were there too. Government business was conducted in the Selamlık. In an era when government and diplomatic service was still an all-masculine province, the Sublime Porte didn’t have to worry about the repercussions of excluding women from diplomatic receptions and other government functions.

Construction of the Dolmabahçe Palace, completed in 1855, entailed huge expenditures, eating up a quarter of the revenue of the Ottoman Empire while it was in progress. It was financed by various unsound financial expedients such as taking out loans and debasing the currency, beginning a deterioration of Ottoman fiscal health which culminated under Abdülmecid’s successors. He died of tuberculosis in 1861, so he did not live to see the chickens come home to roost. His successor Abdulaziz was even more of a fiscal prodigal, who also liked to build new palaces, but in addition had a passion for spending money on the navy, making it the world’s third largest, after the British and French. By 1875 the game was up. In that year the Ottoman government defaulted on its debts, beginning a series of crises that led to the disastrous Russo-Turkish War of 1878-80 and the subsequent establishment of control over the revenues of the empire by the Western powers.

These days, of course, women are not excluded from the Selamlık. Both male and female tourists must enter the Dolmabahçe Palace via the Sultan’s Gate, which lies east of the Clock Tower. Concubines go in through the harem gate on the north side.

The guard at the Sultan’s Gate, in his spotless dress uniform, stood perfectly immobile, rigid, unmoving and unblinking. He reminded me of the KGB guards I had seen at Lenin’s Tomb in Moscow, 34 years previously. I thought maybe he was just a cleverly disguised statue…

…until the changing of the guard, which happened while we were waiting to enter.

The name Dolmabahçe means something like “filled-in garden” and it seems quite appropriate. Actually, during the 18th century, before the earlier Beşiktaş palace was built, the property was a garden, and it had been created by reclaiming land, Dutch-style, from the sea.

The Bosphorus Gate was built to accommodate persons arriving and departing by water.

Lions are generally a favorite emblem of royalty, and the Ottomans were no exception. But I wasn’t sure what species of prey this lion near the Bosphorus gate was depicted as trying to rip apart. Was it a dragon or a lizard, or something else?

This lioness was just lyin’ here, feeding her cubs.

Although it was still very early spring and not everything was in blossom yet, somehow the gardeners had done a great job of making it look almost like May.

On the side of one of the red walls of the palace gates, I found this elaborate fixture, equipped with a basin to catch the flow from the spigot. Was it intended to serve as a birdbath? There was no placard or sign to illuminate its purpose.

The third major point of access to the Dolmabahçe Palace gardens (the Sultan’s Gate and Bosphorus Gate being the others) is the Treasury Gate, on the north side of the palace grounds; it resembles the Sultan’s Gate but is smaller and symmetrical on either side – the curved wings form an “X”. It is normally kept closed, so that the public may access the palace grounds only through the Sultan’s Gate.

Sandie shot this photo of the lioness just lyin’ there with her cubs crawling all over her back, looking as if they are plotting some particularly nefarious naughtiness. (Yes, I know I’ve really overused that stupid pun.)

We spied the world’s most elegant lampposts in the gardens of the Dolmabahçe Palace. The Dolmabahçe Palace was among the first in Europe to get gas lighting.

In front of the main entrance to the palace stands the Swan Fountain. I have not been able to find out much about it, but to me it is the iconic memento of the palace.

Strictly speaking, it’s not accurate to describe the entrance pictured below as the “main” entrance to the palace, since it provided access only to the Selamlık, the area of the palace usually described as “reserved for men”, whereas the harem had its own “main” entrance, on the north side of the palace building. However, since access to the harem was restricted to the imperial family and its servants, I have chosen to take liberties and describe the entrance to the Selamlık as the main entrance. In any case, it was the entrance we used.

Two impressive urns or flowerpots stood on either side of the palace steps. Not being an art historian, I lack the expertise to describe them properly, but I would say (with tongue in cheek) that the imagery seems to be drawn more from pagan antiquity than Islamic tradition. My guess is that these pieces were the work of contemporary European artists.

I couldn’t resist a closer shot of the ram-like creature. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the Greek nature deity Pan, but I find it more likely that the artist was just trying to depict some exotic species of goat, either real or imagined.

Shortly we found ourselves in the Medhal, the main lobby of the Selamlık. In Ottoman times, guests of the Sultan would wait here to be escorted to their destination by a palace protocol officer.

The fireplaces in the Dolmabahçe Palace turned out to be very different from the conical fireplaces of the Topkapı Palace, and rather more elaborate. I don’t know whether they kept the rooms any warmer, but they were certainly colorful. This one was in the Medhal, and can be seen in the last photo above, next to the column on the right.

Every room in the palace seemed to have at least one incredibly elaborate and expensive Bohemian glass chandelier. Some, like the Medhal, had more than one. I’d hate to have to pay the electric bill.

Chandeliers are ubiquitous throughout the Dolmabahçe Palace. This was the one over the Crystal Staircase (see following picture for more on the staircase).

Whereas Iznik tile and Ottoman carving dominates the Topkapı Palace, the Dolmabahçe Palace trends more to gold and crystal. The famous Crystal Staircase is a case in point, not to mention the chandeliers.

The bannisters of the Crystal Staircase are made of mahogany, the supports of Baccarat Crystal. Baccarat crystal is made by a privately-owned French company founded in 1764; Bohemian crystal is made in, duh, Bohemia, part of the Czech Republic.

At the top of the Crystal Staircase (you can see it in a previous photo) stands this amazing Art Nouveau-style lamp, looking as if it came right from the workshops of Louis Comfort Tiffany. Unfortunately we weren’t able to find out anything about its provenance then or later.

Did I mention gold? 14 metric tons of gold were used to gild the palace ceilings. No wonder the Ottoman Empire went bankrupt in the 19th century.

The prize for the most enigmatic furnishing in the palace, without question, goes to the ivory-tusk piece pictured below. There was no plaque or placard associated with it, nothing to indicate its purpose, where it came from, who made it, or what the vessel suspended from the elephant tusk was intended to contain. I can speculate that the trumpet-shaped receptacles, instead of just holding candles, somehow siphoned oil from the hanging vessel.

Very imaginative, and very much unacceptable if it were made today, but in the nineteenth century nobody worried about elephants becoming extinct.

A door framed by two Ming vases took us into the Ambassadors’ Hall, where the Sultan received envoys of other nations, including Russia, whose Tsar Nicholas I donated two bearskin rugs for the room.

A close-up shot of one of the Ming vases reveals the incredible detail achieved by the Chinese artists who mastered this blue-on-white ceramic technique.

Even the smallest and most basic furnishings in this palace, such as the doorknobs, were exquisite.

In the Red Room, not surprisingly, the color red predominates in the drapes, wall fabric and furniture, and even shows up in the chandelier. Gold leaf is used extensively in the furnishings and ornamentation.

Parquet blocks with complex geometric designs covered the floors of the palace. They reminded me of the parquet floors in the palaces of Russian tsars, which I had visited in 1972-3. However, in the Dolmabahçe Palace the floors were more often overlaid with sumptuous carpets. These were produced exclusively in the town of Hereke, near Istanbul, in a factory founded by Sultan Abdülmecid I himself in 1841. The Sultan reserved the production of these carpets for himself, only giving some of them away as presents for visiting royalty and other dignitaries. Until 1890 their sale on the commercial market was forbidden. They were (and still are) made with wool, cotton and silk thread, and sometimes gold and silver as well.

There are a number of so-called Boulle tables in Dolmabahçe Palace. André-Charles Boulle was a French cabinetmaker of the 17th and early 18th centuries, considered the greatest of his time. He could not have made the Boulle tables in the Dolmabahçe Palace because he died in 1732, and the tables were inlaid with Sultan Abdülmecid’s monogram. After his death his name became a generic term for the type of work he did. There was no information to indicate who actually made the Boulle tables or when.

The harem contained many elaborately carved pieces of furniture, but again, no information was provided as to their origins or creators.

In the Blue Room, as the name implies, the color blue dominated the furnishings decorations. It was here that the Sultan met with the public, when he was so inclined.

This chandelier turned out to be my favorite of all those in the palace because of its relative simplicity and its judicious use of the color red. I don’t remember which room it was in.

Trompe d’oeil, a feature I had seen used extensively in tsarist Russian palaces, was also present in the Dolmabahçe Palace. An outstanding example was this faux window with a flowerpot sitting on the sill. It was in the same room as the red chandelier, but I don’t remember the name of the room.

In a harem bedroom with pink curtains, we saw the bed pictured here. This is the kind of bed that comes to mind when I think of a bed fit for a king or queen.

In the dining room, we viewed the china on which the royal family took their meals.

Also on display were elegant silver vessels, platters and china demi-tasses, suitable for tea or coffee.

This table was set with what I presumed to be tea services, as well as decanters for other beverages, and vessels for sugar, cream and other condiments.

The palace library was added by Abdülmecid II, a gentle and scholarly man who became Crown Prince in 1918, but never Sultan, since the Sultanate was abolished in 1922. Instead he was elected Caliph, but that office was abolished too in 1924, and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk sent Abdülmecid into exile to prevent him from becoming a rallying point for opposition to the new republican regime. The library thus ended up being used mainly by Atatürk, who moved the capital to Ankara, but used the Dolmabahçe Palace as his Istanbul headquarters. The library is noteworthy not only for its collection of real books but also for the fake ones where one could conceal medications and various recreational substances.

In one of the boudoirs of the harem we encountered a combination candelabra, clock, and bowl, equipped with containers for dispensing either condiments or cosmetics, I’m not sure which.

The largest room in the Dolmabahçe palace is the Muayede or Ceremonial Hall, which at once culminates and terminates the Selamlık, separating it from the harem. Women were not allowed to attend the ceremonies here, but they could watch from windows in the upstairs corridor connecting the Selamlik with the harem. The floor of the Muayede is partially covered with the largest Hereke carpet in the world.

The beautifully inlaid dome of the Muayede is 118 feet high, and 56 columns line the hall. In the winter, it took three days to heat the Muayede in preparation for a ceremony.

The Muayede also sports the world’s largest Bohemian glass chandelier. It weighs 4.5 tons and has 750 lamps. It used to be thought that it was a gift from Queen Victoria, but in 2006, when we visited, I brought a receipt which I had turned up while I was in England showing that it had been bought and paid for by the Sultan’s treasury. (Of course I’m kidding about me finding the receipt, but the rest is true.)

As we left the palace, Sandie and I posed for a farewell picture by the pond in the palace garden, with the Swan Fountain and the Selamlık façade as a backdrop.

The afternoon of March 30, 2006, was the occasion of a memorable odyssey on the waterways of Istanbul. We boarded our cruise boat at a dock in the Eminönü waterfront area, on the south side of the Golden Horn, near Galata Bridge in the shadow of the Suleiman Mosque.

As our cruise boat pulled away from the dock, I snapped a photo of the opposite shore of the Golden Horn, focusing on the Galata Bridge. I was unaware of it at the time I shot this picture, but there is a lot of history behind this bridge. It is at least the fifth Galata Bridge over the Golden Horn. Before the first was built, there were many proposals and designs, one of them submitted by Leonardo da Vinci in response to a request by Sultan Bayezid II at the beginning of the 16th century. Leonardo’s proposal was rejected, and Michelangelo, who was also solicited, would have nothing to do with it. The first bridge was built in the 19th century. The current bridge is the fifth; it was completed in 1994 by a Turkish construction company, replacing a previous bridge built by a German contractor in 1912. (I always enjoy hearing that the locals can do the job and don’t need to rely on foreign firms to do the hard stuff.) This bridge has a particular appeal to me because fishermen are able to fish from it, apparently without official restrictions, and the lower level is lined with fish restaurants, indicating that these waters aren’t too polluted to fish from (or at least I hope so).

We shortly rounded Seraglio Point, the site of the Topkapı Palace, and got a great panoramic view of the area we had visited in the morning.

From the cruise boat we caught sight of a part of the Topkapı complex not visible to us during the morning’s visit. On the shoreline below the palace gardens, there used to be a row of pavilions and palaces belonging to the Topkapı palace, but now the only one remaining is the Basketweavers’ Pavilion (or Kiosk), the Sepetçiler Köşkü. It was built by Sultan Murad III in 1591 as a place for Roma basketweavers to sell their goods, but has undergone many changes of usage since then, and is now the headquarters of the Turkish Green Crescent, a nonprofit benevolent society dedicated to combating substance abuse.

The cruise boat also provided a view of what used to be known as the Sublime Porte. I think I mentioned in a previous post that the Sultan’s ministers used to announce his decrees at the main gate of the palace, the Bâb-ı Hümâyûn, and this was translated into French (the French being the first of the Western European powers to conclude an alliance with the Ottoman Turks, in 1536) as “Sublime Porte.” The Europeans began to use this term to refer to the Ottoman government as a whole. When, in the 18th century, a grand new Italian-style building was built to house the Grand Vizier and his subordinates, it also had a magnificent ceremonial gate, the Bab-ı Ali, and that gate became the Sublime Porte. After the Ottoman Empire gave way to the Turkish Republic in the 1920s, the term Sublime Porte fell out of use, and the former headquarters of the Grand Vizier is now the seat of the Governor of Istanbul Province.

Istanbul’s location astride the Bosporus, the busiest and narrowest international navigation strait in the world, guarantees its importance as a seaport, and it was no surprise to see abundant evidence of the key role of seaborne commerce in the city’s economy. (In 2018, 74% percent of the city’s exports and 93% percent of its imports in 2018 went by sea; over 200 million tons of oil alone go through the Straits each year.) It was a bit of a surprise, though, to see a passenger balloon casually hovering over the port. We never found out for sure, but my guess was that some enterprising entrepreneur had established a business operating harbor cruises by balloon for daring and well-heeled tourists.

After the end of the Tulip Period, beginning around 1740, Ottoman architects began to more openly imitate European architectural styles, and the Turkish Rococo creations exemplified by the Fountain of Sultanahmet III gave way to a full-blown Ottoman Baroque style, which persisted through numerous variations and reincarnations down to the nineteenth century. The Dolmabahçe Mosque, seen below, was commissioned by the Valide Sultan, mother of Abdülmecid I, in 1855, with the design entrusted to an Armenian architect, Garabet Balyan. Its distinctive feature is the stone arches on all sides, into which are cut large windows admitting a flood of light into the interior.

As you might guess, the Dolmabahçe Mosque is quite near the Dolmabahçe Palace, and indeed it shortly came into view. But first we encountered its clock tower, which was actually the last major structure added to the palace complex, in 1890-95, much later than the construction of the palace itself.

The Dolmabahçe Palace was commissioned by the reforming Sultan Abdülmecid I in 1843 and completed in 1856. The Ottomans had already built several palaces along the shores of the Bosporus – mostly as summer risidences – but the Dolmabahçe was specifically intended to replace the Topkapı as the primary residence of the Sultan. The reasons usually given are that the Topkapı was too “medieval,” outdated and lacking in the luxuries, comforts and accoutrements enjoyed by contemporary European monarchs. Given that we had just seen the Topkapı that morning, and it looked quite luxurious and comfortable to us, one wonders why the Sultan couldn’t have just followed the usual practice of adding a new structure to the palace if he didn’t like the existing ones? In fact he did do that, but apparently it wasn’t enough. I surmise that he not only wanted a showcase of the latest trends and styles to impress the Europeans, but also to sweep the Ottoman past, with its associations of backwardness and insularity, under the rug. One online source states flatly that the true reason for building the Dolmabahçe Palace was to hide the fact that the Ottoman Empire was in decline.

The Dolmabahçe Palace has been characterized as the largest in Turkey, but I think that needs to be qualified as “the largest contained in a single building.” The Dolmabahçe Palace has an area of 45,000 square meters, with the palace grounds taking up a total area of 110,000 square meters, while the Topkapı occupies at least 592,600 square meters.

The Dolmabahçe Palace did not leave the past entirely behind. It still had a harem with eunuch guards. The southern wing, or Selamlık, was the more “public” area, where foreign diplomats and other visitors were received; the harem, containing the private residential quarters of the imperial family, was in the northern wing, with separate entrances to assure isolation from the outside world.

The Harem was connected to the Selamlık by a long, narrow corridor manned by eunuch guards. As in the Topkapı Palace, the harem contained quarters for official wives, the Queen mother (Valide Sultan), favorites (Gozde) and concubines (Cariye), as well as schoolrooms for the young children of the sultan. When the princes reached puberty, they were no longer quartered in the harem, but rather (as I mentioned in the Topkapi Palace Harem post) given quarters of their own where they were confined and closely watched so they could not make trouble for the reigning sultan.

In fact there was a separate palace for the Crown Prince on the east side of the Dolmabahçe Palace, not connected to the harem; it is now the National Palaces Painting Museum (Milli Saraylar Resim Müzesi). By this time (late 19th century) the Kafes or Cage in the Topkapi Palace was no longer in use, and junior princes were confined in other palaces such as the Beylerbeyi on the Asian side of the Bosporus.

Not long after passing the Dolmabahçe Palace, we encountered another 19th-century Ottoman palace, the Çırağan. It would not be the last; it seems that in the 19th century the Ottoman sultans decided that it was too déclassé to live in the palaces of their predecessors, and started a tradition (short-lived, as it turned out) of each sultan building his own new palace upon his accession. The Çırağan Palace was built for Sultan Abdulaziz (r. 1861-1876), who entrusted both design and construction to the Armenian Balyan family, who provided virtually all the Ottoman palace architects in the 19th century.  Construction was completed in 1867. Abdulaziz was deposed in a coup in 1876 and shortly afterward died, most likely by suicide. His immediate successor, his nephew Murad V, then moved into Çırağan, only to be deposed himself by his brother Abdulhamid II by reason of mental incompetence. But Murad continued to live in the Çırağan Palace until his death in 1904. Abdulhamid II had his own new palace, the Yildiz (Star), built in 1880, in a complex on the hill above the Çırağan, but it was not visible from our cruise boat.

In 1909, after the Young Turk revolution had swept Abdulhamid II into retirement, the Çırağan Palace became the meeting place of the new Ottoman Parliament; unfortunately it was nearly destroyed by a catastrophic fire shortly thereafter. Only the outside walls remained intact, and for years the property was used as a football field. In 1987 a Japanese company purchased the ruined palace and had it restored, adding a new hotel building next to it. Currently the property is owned by the Kempinski Hotels chain, which operates the restored palace as luxury suites for the hotel, with the top-rated Sultan’s Suite going for US$35,000 per night.

Our Bosporus cruise was set up to follow the European shore on the way out and the Asian shore on the way back. Our itinerary took us under two colossal bridges spanning the Bosporus. The older of the two, built in 1973, was known at the time of our visit to Istanbul simply as the Bosporus Bridge, but in 2016 it was renamed the July 15th Martyrs’ Bridge in memory of the soldiers who were killed resisting the attempted military coup on that date. At the time of its completion, it had the fourth longest suspension bridge span in the world, and the longest outside the USA, but since then a lot of other bridges have been built and it is now only the fortieth longest.

In the shadow of the Bosphorus Bridge stands the Ortaköy Mosque, formally titled the Büyük Mecidiye Camii, or Grand Imperial Mosque, of Sultan Abdülmecid. It was built between 1854 and 1856, in the then-fashionable Neo-Baroque style. The architects were (who else?) members of the Armenian Balyan family of court architects.

The Ortaköy Mosque is rather modest in size, especially by comparison with the great mosques in the central area of Istanbul, but it stands out nonetheless, partly because of its location and partly because of its unusual design. Although we did not have a chance to visit the interior, I understand from descriptions and photos that the high bay windows are cunningly crafted to refract the light entering them – both direct sunlight and light reflected off the water – so as to flood the interior with a soft and serene radiance.

We reached the northernmost point of our cruise at the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge (“Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror Bridge”), about which more in a moment, but just before reaching it our eyes were drawn to an imposing castle with fortifications frowning down on the Bosporus. This was the Rumelihisarı, built in 1451-2 on the orders of Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror in preparation for the siege of Constantinople. The idea was to blockade the Bosphorus against any possible effort by Christian forces to break the siege. (It worked.) The little blue-and-white-striped tower on the waterfront, toward the center of the picture, is the modern Aşiyan lighthouse.

The original name of Rumelihisari was “Boğazkesen”, which means “strait-cutter”; but “boğaz” means “throat” as well as “strait” in Turkish, so the implication was that it was going to cut the throat of the Byzantine Empire – which it did.

After Rumelihisarı had served its original purpose in securing the fall of Constantinople, the Ottomans turned it into a border checkpoint and customs-house; they also used it at times as a prison. But nowadays it houses a museum open to the public and also provides a venue on its grounds for concerts, art festivals and other outdoor events.

On the Asian side of the Bosphorus, opposite Rumelihisarı, stands an even older Ottoman castle, Anadoluhisarı. By 1394 the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I had conquered much of the Balkans and Anatolia and was preparing to deliver the coup de grâce to the Byzantine Empire; he had Anadoluhisarı built as part of his preparation for the siege of Constantinople. The Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus tried to organize a Crusade to raise the siege, and he did succeed in getting the King of Hungary and a few others to come to his aid, but Bayezid smashed the Crusaders and the siege continued. Unfortunately for Bayezid, however, he made the mistake of antagonizing one of the most fearsome conquerors in history, the Turco-Mongol warlord Timur the Lame or Tamerlane. In 1402 Timur’s forces routed the Ottoman army at Ankara and routed it; Bayezid was taken captive and died in captivity. His sons thereupon immediately began fighting over the succession, and although Timur removed himself from the scene by going off to invade China, and dying on the way (1405), the defeat and the civil war over the succession resulted in a period of chaos known as the Ottoman Interregnum, giving the Byzantines a half-century reprieve. But this only delayed the inevitable; eventually the Ottomans got their act back together and resumed the onslaught on Constantinople. In 1453 Sultan Mehmed II used Anadoluhisarı in tandem with his newly-built fortress of Rumelihisarı to cut off all traffic along the Bosphorus and thus seal the fate of Constantinople.

A little way beyond the Rumeli-Anadoluhisari structures stands the second of the great Bosphorus bridges, named after the Sultan who led the conquest of Constantinople in 1453. When completed in 1988, it was the 5th-longest suspension bridge span in the world; now it is the 36th. (They build a lot of long bridges these days. At the time of this writing the longest is the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge over the Dardanelles, a strait that Xerxes of Persia bridged with boats to facilitate his invasion of Greece in 480 BC.) It carries European route E80, the Trans-European Motorway, between Edirne and Ankara, and about 150,000 vehicles cross over it each day.

Within a stone’s throw of Anadoluhisari, on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, stands the Küçüksu Palace (or Küçüksu Pavilion, Küçüksu Kasrı in Turkish), a small palace or large pavilion, depending on your preference. Commissioned by Sultan Abdulmejid I, who entrusted the architecting to the (you guessed it!) Armenian Balyan family, it was finished in 1857. It was a summer palace and was used mainly as a country retreat and hunting lodge – the area was presumably much more rural in the 19th century than it is now.

Turkish sultans were not the only persons building palaces along the Bosphorus. From the 18th century onward, it became fashionable among the Turkish elite to build waterside mansions called yalı. They generally built the yalis as second homes to use for seaside vacations. According to Wikipedia there are 620 of them, scattered on both sides of the Bosphorus; but their count includes only Ottoman-era yalı, so here I have to make a disclaimer. Knowing nothing about the subject at the time, I photographed them indiscriminately, without worrying about whether they were authentic Ottoman-era yalı, and I’m applying the term to all those that I photographed, some of which clearly date to post-Ottoman times. Furthermore, I have lumped all my yalı shots together, without respect to the order in which I shot them, their locations or ages, so I’m not distinguishing, for example, which ones were on the European and which on the Asian shore.

That said, the yali in the next photo are clearly among the older breed.

Our guide Attila assured us that the property values along the Bosphorus were among the highest in the world. I’ve since noted that the Erbilgin Yalı was listed in 2009 as being on sale for $100,000,000, making it the fifth most expensive house in the world. It is on the European side, north of the Mehmed bridge, so I didn’t have a chance to shoot it, but you can see a picture of it here.

One of my favorites was this identical-twin yalı with the Mansard-style roof. I rather doubt whether this would be classified among the 620 authentic Ottoman yalı – it’s clearly of more recent vintage. I haven’t yet been able to find out any information about it, though.

Some houses were built so closely together that they had to be sharing walls. In the rather bizarre scene below three yalı, each with its own quite distinct architectural style, appear to be crammed together on the same foundation.

I gave the next yalı the top score for having the most flamboyant color. Actually there are several yalı with similar color schemes, such as the Hekimbasi Yali near Bosphorus Bridge, and the yali of Count Leon Ostrorog on the Kandilli shore, but somehow I missed those.

The next photo represents an unusual sight in what was otherwise a very upper-crust neighborhood. I guessed that it was probably an old house in the process of being torn down and replaced with a new one. I suppose it could also be an old house in the process of restoration, but given the extent of the devastation, that seems unlikely.

The price of real estate along the Bosphorus means that many yalı owners, who are among the well-to-do but not super-rich, have to squeeze the most possible value out of every square centimeter of their land, so they built up rather than out. It’s the same principle that led to building skyscrapers in New York. This yalı took the honor of being the skinniest.

Judging from the looks of this place, I’d guess that it was no yalı but a neighborhood mosque.

On our way back down we passed the Kuleli Military High School, the oldest military high school in Turkey, founded by Sultan Abdülmecid I in 1845. Prior to housing the school, the building had been built as the Kuleli Cavalry Barracks. The architect, of course, was Garabet Balyan. After the attempted coup d’état of July 15, 2016, the Erdogan regime issued a decree closing all the military high schools, including Kuleli, which was turned into a museum.

Just before passing back under the Bosphorus (15 Martyrs) Bridge, we passed the Beylerbeyi Palace, one of the last few Ottoman palaces to be built, in 1861-1865. Sultan Abdülaziz (1830–1876) intended it as a summer residence and a place to entertain visiting heads of state.  The architect was (surprise!) Sarkis Balyan. Abdülaziz did indeed use the Beylerbeyi Palace to put up foreign dignitaries; one of them was the Shah of Iran, and another was Empress Eugénie of France, wife of Napoleon III, in 1868. Eugenie enjoyed her stay in Beylerbeyi, but things did not go so well when Abdülaziz took her to meet his mother, the Valide Sultan Pertevniyal, in the Dolmabahçe Palace. Pertevniyal reportedly considered it an outrage that an infidel foreign woman would dare to venture into her private quarters, and slapped Eugénie in the face (or on the tummy, according to another account). The incident, if it did occur, was quickly swept under the rug (which, being a luxurious Turkish carpet, smoothed it over very well), and apparently it had no lasting repercussions.

Nearing the end of our Bosphorus odyssey, we passed the older and smaller (but still quite substantial) of two 16th-century mosques commissioned by Mihrimah Sultan, daughter of Suleiman the Magnificent and husband of one of his Grand Viziers, Rüstem Pasha. (The other one is located in the Edirnekapı neighborhood of Fatih district, on the European side.) Imperial architect Mimar Sinan, greatest of classical Ottoman architects, was the designer, and the mosque, completed in 1548, is considered a fine example of his mature style. It is one of the most prominent landmarks in the Üsküdar district of Istanbul.

As the cruise boat turned back across the Bosphorus toward the dock, it passed close by a tower perched on a tiny islet off the Asian shore, known as Kiz Kulesi, or Maiden’s Tower. The name comes from a legend that one of the Byzantine emperors had a beautiful daughter whom he loved greatly, but an oracle predicted that she would be bitten by a venomous snake and die on her 18th birthday. The emperor built a tower on the islet and confined his daughter there to keep her safe from snakes. On her 18th birthday the emperor, rejoicing that he had foiled the prophecy, took her a basket of fruit as a birthday gift. Unbeknownst to him, an asp had sneaked into the basket and was hiding amongst the fruit. Of course you can guess what happened next. There are other legends connected with this tower, but they all seem equally improbable and I’ll leave readers to investigate them if they so desire.

More in accord with historical fact, there seems to have been a tower on the island at least since ancient Greek times. The Byzantines stretched chains across the Bosphorus from Kız Kulesi to the mainland to close the straits against their enemies. After the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the Turks used the Maiden’s Tower as a watchtower and a lighthouse. The tower was destroyed several times over the centuries by earthquakes and fires, and repeatedly restored. In its latest incarnation, it has a restaurant inside, to which we would embark the following evening for a farewell dinner.

As our cruise boat neared its dock in Eminönü, we caught sight of another classical Ottoman mosque, the so-called New Mosque (Yeni Cami). The name is misleading; construction began in 1597 under the auspices of Valide Sultan Safiye, the mother of Sultan Mehmed III. But Mehmed died in 1603 and his successor, Ahmed I, apparently resented his grandmother and had no interest in completing her mosque project. In fact, Safiye was widely unpopular and had evoked considerable discontent among the army and the people, not least by her mosque project, which was quite expensive. Thus Ahmed I booted Safiye out of Topkapı and sent her back to the Old Palace. The mosque was left partially constructed. Half a century later, another Valide Sultan, Turhan, was persuaded to complete the mosque as an act of piety. She also initiated the construction of the Spice Bazaar, which we were to visit next.

The official name of the Spice Bazaar in Turkish, Mısır Çarşısı, translates as “Egyptian Bazaar,” reflecting the financing of the project, which drew upon the revenues from Egypt, an Ottoman province at the time of construction. After completing the Spice Bazaar in 1664, the Ottoman government rented out the stalls and used the revenues thus obtained to support the upkeep of the New Mosque.

These days the Spice Bazaar is the second largest covered mall in Istanbul, hosting 85 shops, selling not only spices but also sweets, especially Turkish Delight, fruits, nuts, jewelry and tourist souvenirs.

Laden down with goodies from the Spice Bazaar, we boarded the bus to creep our way through traffic back across the Golden Horn to our hotel in Beyoğlu. Rush-hour traffic in Istanbul is not for the fainthearted. I often see claims to the effect that LA traffic is “the world’s worst.” This is nonsense. There are many cities in the world where traffic is worse than Los Angeles, and Istanbul is definitely one of them.

Our guide, Attila, told us that it took him two hours to get from his residence on the Asian side of Istanbul to the European side by car; he used public transportation instead – it was faster.

Since the Hotel Richmond was located on Istiklal Street, which was closed to vehicular traffic, we had to disembark from our bus on a neighboring street and walk back to the hotel, carrying whatever loot we had managed to pick up in our forays around the city.

That evening, our penultimate night in Istanbul, those of us who were still able walk and stay upright concluded our exhausting but uplifting day by enjoying a delectable dinner in a fine seafood restaurant in Beyoğlu.

On the morning of April 1, 2006, our tour group visited what I regard as one of the greatest monuments in the world, the former basilica, later mosque, later again museum, and now again (as of 2020) a mosque, Hagia Sophia, or Aya Sophia as it is known in Turkish.

Hagia Sophia was built in the reign of the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I and completed in 537 CE. At the time it was the world’s largest cathedral and remained so until the completion of the Roman Catholic cathedral in Seville, Spain, in 1520.

The name Hagia Sophia does not pertain to any particular saint but rather means “Holy Wisdom,” referring to Jesus Christ.

Over the centuries Hagia Sophia has undergone many changes, as a result of both natural disasters and human events. Among the first of the former was the cracking of the main dome and collapse of the eastern semi-dome in 558, destroying the altar area. The main dome had to be completely rebuilt, but the result has survived, with some reinforcement and repair, down to the present day. I’ll mention some of the other circumstances in the course of this post.

The day before, our guide, Attila Mahur, had warned us that avian flu had been going around in Turkey, and he recommended that we wear masks the following day. Now I had read, before embarking on the trip, that avian flu was circulating in Turkey. Not only that, but I was a bit apprehensive about the long flight from Chicago to Istanbul and back again, because every time I had flown commercial aviation over the previous few years I had contracted a respiratory illness, so I had brought along a box of surgical masks and had even worn one on the flights to Turkey. I took Attila’s warning seriously and wore one of the masks on our last day in Istanbul, when we boarded the bus to head for Hagia Sofia.

I had no idea at the time that April Fool’s Day was observed in Turkey. Once we arrived at Hagia Sophia, Attila removed his mask and cheerfully confessed to his mischief. Either because I was the only person to bring masks on the trip, or because I was the only one dumb enough to fall for the joke, I was almost the only person who had a mask on at the time. Actually a couple of others had worn masks, but I think they just did it to humor Attila and weren’t actually fooled.

The Hagia Sophia that we saw is at least the third church to be built on the same site. The first was the Magna Ecclesia of Constantius II, son of Constantine the Great, built around 360 CE. It burned down during a riot in 404 CE. The second was commissioned by Emperor Theodosius II and completed by 415; it burned down during the Nika riots of 532. Emperor Justinian then began construction of a new church, which was completed in 537. During the 1930s, excavations conducted by a German archaeologist unearthed fragments of the old Theodosian church; they are now displayed in an area outside the existing Hagia Sophia.

The Corinthian-style column capital pictured below is one of the few surviving remnants of the Theodosian church.

Another remnant of the Theodosian church is the frieze with lambs pictured below, representing the twelve apostles of Christ.

The Imperial Gate, or Emperor’s Door, is the largest entrance to Hagia Sophia at 21 meters, or 23 feet, in height. Legend says that it was made of wood from Noah’s Ark or the Hebrew Ark of the Covenant. It is made of oak, with a bronze frame. Entry was restricted to the Emperor and his entourage. The mosaic in the tympanum above the door dates from the late 9th or early 10th century and depicts Christ seated on his throne, with the emperor bowing down to him. The circular medallions on either side feature busts of Christ’s mother Mary and the Angel Gabriel.

A narthex is defined as “A western vestibule leading to the nave in some (especially Orthodox) Christian churches.” Hagia Sofia has a double narthex, with both an outer (exo-) and an inner (esonarthex). A ramp from the northern part of the outer narthex leads up to the upper gallery.

The exo-narthex is huge and has a number of doors, each one with a distinctive design.

We caught a glimpse of the nave (central part of the church, on the ground floor) before proceeding to the upper level. It was evident from the scaffolding that extensive restoration work was going on.

Ascending to the second floor, we found ourselves in the upper gallery, which encloses the nave of the church on three sides; the fourth side is occupied by the apse. (For those not familiar with church architecture, the apse is a large semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault; the nave is the central part of a church building, intended to accommodate most of the congregation.)

After the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque, and over the centuries a number of Muslim decorations and symbols were added. Most prominent and striking are the huge green medallions hanging on the walls of the nave, added in conjunction with restoration work undertaken performed in 1847-49. They are inscribed with the names of Allah, Muhammad, the first four caliphs, and the grandchildren of Muhammad. In my view they clash with the rest of the decor.

The central section of the upper gallery, above the Imperial Gate, contains the Empress’ Loge, and the north side the matroneum, or women’s gallery, from which the empress and the ladies of the court could watch church services.

I admired the way that the green marble columns were joined to and integrated with the gallery arches throughout the building. This close-up shot of a double-column capital is from the Empress’ Loge.

At each corner of the square formed by the upper galleries, there is an exedra – a semicircular columned recess which relieves the starkness of sharp corners and provides nooks for conversation.

From the south gallery, we were able to get a good view of the ground floor entry and the Empress’ Loge on the west side.

Attila began our exploration of the upper gallery by discoursing on its architecture and decor to the assembled tour group. The beautiful green marble used for the gallery columns, as well as elsewhere throughout the cathedral, came from Thessaly in northern Greece.

The immense main dome of Hagia Sophia has 40 windows, which both reduce the weight of the dome, making it easier to support, and in combination with the windows in the walls, flood the interior of the nave with light, creating an effect of the dome hovering in the air.

We developed a fascination with the details of the column capitals, which came in a number of somewhat different though similar styles, each with its own design, but all equally intricate and finely crafted.

Columns and other marble elements were imported from throughout the Mediterranean world for the construction of Hagia Sophia.

Even though the columns were made specifically for Hagia Sophia, they vary in size and style.

The intricately carved column capitals in the upper galleries are called “basket capitals” and are carved with the monograms of Emperor Justinian, his wife Theodora, and their titles.

In the Southern Gallery there is a chamber that was used in Byzantine times for conclaves of church officials, such as patriarchal synods. It is entered through the famous Marble Door, which features panels with plant, fruit and fish motifs. Supposedly one side of the door is supposed to represent heaven and the other side hell. I wasn’t aware of that at the time, and I didn’t study it closely, so I have no idea which is which; but I suspect that hell could be found on both sides of the door.

In 1204 the Roman Catholic Pope Innocent III initiated a new Crusade (the Fourth, officially) with the aim of retaking Jerusalem, which had been wrested from Christian control in 1187 by Saladin. Over the Pope’s objections, the Venetians, under the leadership of their Doge, Enrico Dandolo, diverted the Crusaders to attack Constantinople instead. This led to one of the most infamous episodes in medieval European history. The Crusaders, taking advantage of a succession crisis in the Byzantine Empire, first gained control of the city, then sacked it, massacred much of the population, desecrated the churches, and looted the treasures of the city. Hagia Sophia of course did not escape their ravages, and the church was stripped of everything that could be carried off, as well as being vandalized. Fortunately, the great mosaics were up high, hard to reach, and not easy to remove and carry off, so many of them survived.

Enrico Dandolo, a very long-lived man, was already 97 (and blind) at the time of the sack; he died soon after, in 1205, and was buried in Hagia Sophia. Following their conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottomans destroyed his tomb, so that the plaque here is only a cenotaph, installed in the 19th century by an Italian restoration team.

Neither Sandie’s camera nor mine had flash equipment adequate to cope with the low lighting inside Hagia Sophia. Sandie’s Canon, if I recall correctly, had no flash at all and was thus utterly dependent on ambient light. My Nikon had a rather puny flash and was unable to illuminate very dark corners effectively. As a result, many of our photos taken inside the cathedral turned out quite blurry and indistinct. But in a few cases we were able make lemons into lemonade, as the saying goes, and turn our cameras’ shortcomings to our advantage. The next picture, taken by Sandie in the upper gallery, is a case in point. I doubt that she had any idea that she would create this amazing light show, but that’s how it turned out.

The southern part of the upper gallery, the Emperor’s turf, contains some of the most famous and best-preserved mosaics. Although mosaics were part of the original ornamentation of the church, most were destroyed during the period of the Byzantine iconoclastic controversy, which broke out in 726 CE and continued, on and off, until 842. The controversy arose from a conviction which took hold among some circles of the Eastern Orthodox church that too much veneration, verging on idolatry, was being accorded to religious images, in violation of scriptural prohibitions on the worship of graven images. Some of the emperors, adhering to the iconoclast position, attempted to enforce a ban on religious images, removing them from churches and other locations by force, against fierce resistance and violent protests among many sectors of the population. The Roman Papacy refused to support the iconoclastic movement, contributing to a growing estrangement between the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity. In the end the opponents of iconoclasm won out, and the creation and placement of icons in Byzantine churches resumed. Thus, most of the surviving mosaics in Hagia Sophia date from the later 9th century onwards.

Where the colorful arched ceilings with their elaborate abstract figures met the marble walls of the gallery, they were bordered by alabaster reliefs, as seen in this detail photo.

The Empress Zoe mosaic, on the eastern wall of the southern gallery, dates from the mid-11th century. It features Christ Pantocrator (“Almighty” in Greek), a specific type of depiction of Christ seated on a throne holding a Bible in his left hand and giving a blessing with his right. Here he is flanked by Emperor Constantine IX on his right and Empress Zoe on his left. The Emperor is holding a purse, symbolizing donations made to the church, while the Empress is presenting a scroll listing all her good works.

The Comnenus mosaic is also on the eastern wall of the southern gallery. It features the Virgin Mary seated, with the Christ child on her lap, holding a scroll in his left hand and giving a blessing with his right. On their right is Emperor John II Comnenus, holding a purse, and on their left is Empress Irene, bearing a scroll. Empress Irene was a daughter of King Ladislas I of Hungary.

The Deësis mosaic, also on the eastern wall of the southern gallery, is from a later time than the Empress Zoe and Comnenus mosaics. The Latin Fourth Crusaders, after sacking Constantinople in 1204, set up their own regime, the Latin Empire, as a replacement for the Byzantine Empire. Baldwin, count of Flanders, was crowned Emperor in Hagia Sophia. But the Latin Empire lasted only a few years. Byzantine aristocratic refugees escaping the sack of Consantinople regrouped and established their own successor states, one of which, the so-called Empire of Nicaea, eventually retook Constantinople in 1261 and re-established the Byzantine Empire. The Deësis mosaic was commissioned to commemorate the return of Hagia Sophia to the Orthodox Church. It features Christ Pantocrator in the center, along with the Virgin Mary on his right and John the Baptist on his left. Deësis means entreaty, and the two are interceding for humanity on Judgment Day. Unfortunately, the bottom part of the mosaic has suffered greatly from the ravages of time.

Despite the 1261 restoration, the Byzantine Empire never recovered its former extent or strength; it was beset on all sides by increasingly voracious enemies, both Christian and Muslim, and after precariously clinging to life another two centuries, finally fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

From the upper gallery we descended through a dark passageway back to the ground floor.

Upon reaching the ground floor again, we immediately encountered the famous “wishing column”, alternately known as the “weeping column”, or the “perspiring column,” or the “crying column”. Legend has it that the spirit of a saint named Gregory the Miracle-worker, a third-century bishop of Neocaesarea, appeared near the column in 1200. The legend further states that after the apparition of 1200, the column began to exude moisture. Touching the moisture, which Christians tended to view as the tears of the Virgin Mary, and Muslims saw as the tears of the Sultan, was supposed to cure various illnesses. Over time, so many people touched the column that they wore a hole in it. Then bronze plates were installed on the column to protect it, but people continued to touch it and ended up wearing a new hole in the bronze plate over the old hole. Now the legend says that if you stick your thumb into the hole, rotate it 360 degrees and make a wish, your wish will come true.

Several of our party tried putting their thumbs into the hole in the Wishing Column. David Lindquist was one of them. I don’t know what he wished for, but he wasn’t sick at the time, so he couldn’t make a valid test of the putative health-giving properties of the column. (Note: David has since passed away, and this post is dedicated to him in memoriam.)

Sandie also tried her luck at the Wishing Column. This was a very dimly-lit corner of Hagia Sophia, and my camera wasn’t able to take in enough light at the speeds required to freeze motion, so my pictures here came out blurred and indistinct.

Not to be outdone, Cherie made a great effort to ensure that she rotated her hand 360 degrees around the hole, in an agonizing attempt to defy the limits of human anatomy. I also tried the column, and I can now authoritatively state that the legend is not trustworthy. I wished for world peace and the end of international strife, and, well….

Sultan Murad III, who reigned from 1574 to 1595, began his reign by having his five brothers strangled, according to Ottoman custom. Sometime during his reign he also stole from Pergamon two huge alabaster lustration (ritual purification) urns, carved during the Hellenistic era from single blocks of marble, and installed them on the sides of the nave in Hagia Sophia. David Lindquist posed by one of them with his mascot bear Hero (which also became the mascot of our entire tour group during this trip).

The half-dome over the apse, at the east end of Hagia Sophia, features the Virgin and Child mosaic, which depicts the Virgin Mary sitting on a throne holding the Christ Child on her lap.

Theotokos is a Greek term meaning “the one who gave birth to God.” The dating of the Theotokos Virgin and Child mosaic is uncertain; it may be a ninth-century reconstruction of an original sixth-century mosaic destroyed during the iconoclastic period, but it also could be a restoration from a later time. Nobody knows for sure.

When the Ottomans conquered Constantinople in 1453, they converted Hagia Sophia into a mosque, replacing Christian appurtenances with Muslim ones. In the apse, the altar and iconostasis (icon wall) gave way to a mihrab and minbar. The mihrab is a niche in the wall of a mosque indicating the qibla, the direction of Mecca, toward which believers must kneel when praying. The minbar is a pulpit from which the imam delivers sermons. The Christian mosaics depicting Jesus, Mary, the saints, etc. were removed or plastered over in accordance with the Islamic prohibition on representations of humans and animals. The stained-glass windows in the apse now display Islamic inscriptions in elegant calligraphy instead of Christian imagery.

The present-day appearance of the apse is largely a product of the restoration of 1847-49 carried out at the behest of Sultan Abdulmejid I by the Swiss-Italian Fossati brothers. They made some structural repairs and reinforcements, rejuvenated many of the decorations, renovated the minbar and the mihrab and built a new hexagonal loge for the Sultan. With the permission of the sultan, they also did exploratory work on the mosaics, rediscovering and exposing some of the great Christian mosaics plastered over after the Ottoman conquest. But in most cases, in accordance with the Sultan’s wishes, after uncovering the mosaics they documented them and then painted over them again. It was not until after 1935, when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk turned Hagia Sophia a museum, that the mosaics could be restored to public view.

In the center of the apse is the mihrab, the niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the qibla, i.e. the direction of Mecca, toward which Muslims should face when praying. In Hagia Sophia, it occupies the same spot as the Christian altar before the Turkish conquest. The two giant candlesticks on either side of the mihrab were donated by Grand Vizier Ibrahim, who pillaged them from the Hungarian court church during the Turkish conquest of Buda in 1526.

The minbar or pulpit, from which the Imam delivered sermons on Fridays, was first added to Hagia Sophia during the reign of Murad III (1574–1595), but the current one is a product of the renovation of 1847-1849.

Looking up from the ground floor into the vault of one of the exedrae, I was doubly impressed by the way in which these semicircular recesses provide a pleasing way to round out what would otherwise be a stark and abrupt junction between the gallery sides.

Feral cats were a common sight in Hagia Sophia. I thought they provided a nice touch of warmth and coziness in contrast to the cold stone walls and floors of the cath…er, I mean, mosque. I imagine that they were tolerated as an economical means of keeping down the rodent population as well.

Sultan Mahmud I added a library to Hagia Sophia in 1740. It included benches for reading and stands to hold books for readers sitting on the benches.

A series of elegant grilles separate the library from the nave.

In the library stood a piece of furniture which greatly intrigued us. There was nothing to identify its provenance or purpose, and we could only speculate on who made it, when and why. One might guess that it provided light to read by, but the light in the dome seemed too dim to be adequate for that purpose. Even with the illumination from the window, the library was so dark that Sandie’s camera could only capture the picture with a very low shutter speed, so the result is somewhat indistinct; but I was so impressed by the piece that I couldn’t resist including it here.

On our way to the exit we trod marble steps which were worn down by many centuries of foot traffic passing over them.

We exited Hagia Sophia through the Southwestern entrance, another monumental doorway, with a mosaic in the tympanum (archway over the door), depicting the Virgin Mary seated in the center with the Christ child on her lap, with Emperor Constantine on her left, presenting a model of the city of Constantinople, and Emperor Justinian on her right, presenting a model of Hagia Sophia. This mosaic dates from the reign of Basil II (976-1025), one of the most powerful Byzantine emperors, at a time when Byzantium was at the height of its economic and cultural ascendancy.

The figure of the Virgin Mary and Christ Child in the mosaic closely resembles the one in the mosaic on the semi-dome of the apse, pictured earlier, and was likely copied from it. This mosaic was plastered over after the Ottoman conquest, and rediscovered during the restoration of 1847-49.

Exiting from the southwestern entrance, we passed the Muvakkithane, or Timekeeper’s Station. The muwaqqit or timekeeper is the person – ideally an astronomer – whose duty it is to determine the correct time for Adhan (ezan in Turkish), the call to prayer. The Fossati brothers added the Timekeeper’s Station to Hagia Sophia as part of the renovation of 1847-49, in the reign of Sultan Abdulmajid. The renovation also involved (in addition to the interior modifications already described above) altering the minarets to make them equal in height.

After exiting Hagia Sophia, we passed by this beautiful Şadirvan (fountain for ritual ablutions), added by Sultan Mahmud I in 1740. Its rococo style is reminiscent of the Tulip Period, although that had supposedly ended a decade earlier.

At the time of our visit in 2006, Hagia Sophia was a museum, having been made so by a decree of the first president of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, in 1935. In 2020, the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan converted Hagia Sophia back into a mosque. This action evoked massive protests from Christian and secular commentators around the world, though Muslims generally supported the conversion, and the Turkish government staunchly defended its position. I’ll refrain from expressing any opinions on the subject, but I will note that so far Hagia Sophia has remained open free of charge to visitors of all faiths except during Muslim prayer times, during which Christian imagery is obscured by curtains or lasers, but otherwise continues to be visible, and the Turkish government has promised to continue to protect the mosaics and other Christian images.

This will be a short post, because I wanted to give my viewers a break after wending their way through the labyrinthine recesses of Topkapı Palace, and before embarking on our afternoon odyssey on the blue waters of the Bosphorus.

Immediately upon exiting the Topkapı Palace grounds, we encountered a splendid little structure known as the Fountain of Sultan Ahmed III. It was built during the reign of the Sultan of that name, in 1728, on the site previously occupied by a Byzantine fountain called the Perayton. The Fountain of Sultan Ahmed III is a legacy of the so-called Tulip Period of Ottoman history, which lasted from 1718 to 1730, and was thus known because of the passion for tulip flowers which flourished among the Ottoman elite at that time. It was a relatively peaceful period for the Ottomans. Under the guidance of Grand Vizier Nevşehirli Damat İbrahim Pasha, who also happened to be Sultan Ahmed III’s son-in-law, as well as the trend-setter for the tulip craze, the Ottoman government concentrated on promoting economic growth through developing trade and industry, and also embarked upon an extensive building program. During this period the Ottoman Empire became more open to foreign influences, and traditional Ottoman classical architecture gave way to a hybrid style, incorporating elements of contemporary European Baroque style and especially its offshoot, French Rococo, together with motifs imported from Safavid Persia. The building program of the Tulip Period included some major restorations in Topkapı Palace, such as the Gate of Felicity, as well as new structures such as the Enderun Library with its ornate fountain. But the iconic creation of the period was the Fountain of Sultan Ahmed III, built in front of the Imperial Gate of Topkapı Palace. It drew water from an octagonal pool in the center, with space around the pool for the attendants who maintained it and provided services. There were drinking fountains on each side, each in its own mihrab (niche). At each corner was a triple-grilled structure called a sebil, a kind of sub-kiosk where the attendants handed out water, and also sherbet, in cups to the public.

From the Fountain we wended our way, guided by Attila, through a maze of narrow streets toward the Sultanahmet Köftecisi, our luncheon destination. Our route ran between the palace walls and behind Hagia Sofia, through what was clearly a high-rent residential district with spiffy modern condos.

Indeed, some of the spiffy modern structures seemed to be built right into the palace walls, such as the Taverna Sarniç pictured below.

Continuing on our way, we passed by a neighborhood that resembled areas familiar to me from Southern California, especially Temecula and Murrieta, with their tiled roofs and iron fences.

Eventually we emerged onto a street corner near Sultanahmet Square. Turning the corner, one looks back at Hagia Sophia with its minarets, with tombs of the sultans and other structures surrounding it. But the structure at left is all that remains of a 4th century CE triumphal gate which used to house the Stone of Million, a marker of the starting point for measuring distances to all parts of the Byzantine Empire. It was erected to replicate a similar marker, the Milliarium Aureum, or Golden Milestone, in the Forum of Rome. On its base were inscribed the distances of the major cities of the Empire from Constantinople.

Interestingly, until the late 19th century Constantinople was widely accepted as as the locus through which passed the Prime Meridian, the internationally accepted origin of longitude reckoning, and many countries around the world set their clocks based on Constantinople time. However, the International Meridian Conference, held in 1884, decreed that the Zero Meridian should be moved to Greenwich, England, where it has remained ever since. I don’t know how the Ottoman Turks felt about this outcome, but I am fairly certain that it had the support of the British.

Firuz Ağa

tram

Sultanahmet Köftecisi

On our way from the Sultanahmet Köftecisi to the quay where our Bosphorus cruise boat awaited us, we passed the Alman Çeşmesi, or German Fountain, erected to commemorate Kaiser Wilhelm II’s second visit to Turkey (1898). The Turks followed the French in calling the Germans Allemands, though they were getting along much better with the Germans than were the French during this period. The late 19th century was a time of diplomatic realignment, when the traditional support of the French and British for the Ottoman Empire – the “sick man” of Europe – against Russia gave way to an entente between the French and the Russians, the traditional nemesis of the Turks. The French, of course, were seeking to buttress themselves against the new German Empire, which had put them to rout in 1870; they took advantage of the increasing alienation of the Russians from their neighbors, the German and Austrian empires, the Alliance of the Three Emperors having broken up in the 1880s. The Turks, having been deserted by their traditional allies, and with nowhere else to turn, began to look to the Germans, who, now feeling surrounded by hostile powers, were only too happy to offer their support to the Sultan.

Thus the erection of the Alman Çeşmesi marked the beginning of a growing bond between the Germans and the Ottomans that culminated in the conflagration of World War I and the destruction of both empires.

Boarding our tour bus again, we soon arrived at the southern shore of the Golden Horn, near Galata Bridge, where our cruise boat awaited us. While waiting to depart, I snapped a picture of a bread vendor with his wares piled on top of his head in a complex structure resembling Suleiman the Magnificent’s turban. I would have been tempted to sample his wares if I had not been stuffed full of kebabs from the Sultanahmet Köftecisi.

I’m dealing with the Harem together with the Third and Fourth Courtyards because they were in a sense integral, although the Harem was also a sequestered section of the palace where, except for members of the royal family, only women and eunuchs were allowed to tread. Although non-castrated males were allowed into parts of the Third and Fourth Courtyards, they and the Harem were all considered the private domain of the Sultan and his family.

The Gate of Felicity (Bâbüssaâde) provided entrance to the Third or Inner Courtyard. It was also known as the Gate of the White Eunuchs. No one, not even the Grand Vizier, was allowed to pass through this gate without the express permission of the Sultan. It is believed to have first been built in the reign of Mehmet II the Conqueror, mid-15th century, but was renovated in the rococo style in 1774.

Directly behind the Gate of Felicity stands the Arz Odası, or Chamber of Petitions. This contained the Sultan’s Audience Chamber, or throne room if you will. Originally built in the 15th century, it was destroyed in a fire in 1856 and rebuilt afterward. It is a square kiosk with an overhanging roof supported by 22 columns.

Above the main entrance to the Arz Odasi is an Arabic inscription reading “In the Name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful.” On the left side of the doorway providing entry to the Arz Odası was a window where ambassadors and others turned over the gifts they brought for the Sultan. On the right was a drinking fountain, an addition of Suleiman the Magnificent, with an inscription in Persian declaring that the Sultan is “the fountainhead of generosity, justice and the sea of beneficence.” It neglects to mention that the Sultan could have you garroted on a moment’s notice, as Suleiman did with his Grand Vizier, Ibrahim Pasha, in 1536.

In the Third Courtyard we also saw the Pavilion of Mehmed the Conqueror, which housed the Imperial Treasury. Actually there were two treasuries in Topkapi Palace, an Outer and an Inner. The Outer Treasury, located in the Second Court, was built around the end of the 15th century and was the one that financed state administrative expenses. It now houses a collection of arms and armor. The Inner Treasury, pictured below, was built earlier, around 1460, in the reign of Mehmed the Conqueror — it is in fact one of the oldest Topkapı structures. The Inner Treasury paid the expenses of the palace, which of course were much larger and more important than those of the government administration. Nowadays the Conqueror’s Pavilion houses a vast collection of Ottoman art, jewelry and heirlooms. Among other items, these include the Topkapı Dagger, the object of the heist depicted in the 1964 movie Topkapi, one of my all-time favorite films.

Another legacy of the early days of the Topkapi Palace is this large sundial, dating from sometime in the reign of Mehmed the Conqueror, who died in 1481.

The Privy Chamber (Has Oda) is a confusing term, because there were several rooms inside the Harem with similar names, but as far as I can tell the original Has Oda was built in the reign of Sultan Murad III (1574-1595) to house the most sacred relics of the Islamic world, which included the cloak of Mohammed, a hair of his beard, his personal weapons, etc. This room was so holy that even the Sultan was permitted to enter only once a year, on the 15th of Ramadan.

Next to the Audience Chamber but of much later origin is the Enderun Library, built in 1719 on order of Sultan Ahmed III for use by the officials of his household, so it was also known as the Library of Sultan Ahmed III. I found it interesting mainly for the elaborate drinking fountain in front of the portico, which offered a place to quench one’s physical thirst before satisfying the thirst for knowledge.

The Terrace Mosque and the Grand Pavilion, seen below, were latecomers to Topkapı. The former, also known as the Sofa Mosque, was added in the reign of Mahmud III (1808-39). The Grand Pavilion was built in 1840, after the reforming Sultan Abdulmejid I came to the throne. Abdulmejid deserted the Topkapı Palace as antiquated and built the new Dolmabahçe Palace on the Bosphorus to replace it, but evidently he felt obligated to visit the Topkapı now and then to perform the rituals of his office and placate the traditionalists, and he had the Grand Pavilion built for that purpose.

The Imperial Harem consisted of a series of buildings, apartments and courtyards on the west side of the Topkapı Palace. It connected to both the Second and Third Courtyards by various gates, doors and walkways, such as the Pebble Walk shown here. Access was controlled by turnstiles such as the ones at the end of the walkway, manned by eunuch guards who beheaded anyone trying to sneak in. (Actually, of course, the turnstiles are a modern addition. The eunuch guards, however, were quite real.)

The harem was a huge place, with over 400 rooms, and it had to be, because it housed not only the Sultan, his wives (Islamic law permits up to 4) and concubines, of whom there could be as many as 300, and their children, but also the Sultan’s mother, the Valide Sultan, her familiars, and the servants, including the eunuchs, who served as administrators, menials and guards.

Actually the harem was not established in Topkapı Palace until the reign of Murad III (1574-95); until then it remained in the Old Palace, because Mehmet the Conqueror had ordained that women should not reside in the same place where government business was conducted. However, Hurrem, the favored wife of Suleiman the Magnificent, had already defied this rule by moving into Topkapı when the old harem burned down.

At this point I have to put in a disclaimer: The Topkapı harem is a maze. It puts to shame the Labyrinth of the Minotaur in Crete (which, by the way, the Ottomans conquered in the 17th century). Each category of persons living in the harem — concubines, eunuchs, princes, etc. — had its own quarters, clustered around a courtyard. These were connected by hallways, walkways, and in some cases, secret passages. Although there were of course signs and placards identifying the various rooms and courtyards we traversed, I was not always able to keep track of which was which, and the pace of our tour did not allow keeping extremely detailed notes, so there may be gaps or errors in identifying some of the rooms and courtyards shown here.

The largest courtyard in the harem was the Courtyard of the Valide Sultan or Queen Mother, the mother of the reigning sultan. Other than the Sultan himself, the Valide Sultan was the center of gravity in the harem and usually exerted considerable influence over the Sultan. In fact, during the period 1533-1636 the Valide Sultans were so influential that the period is sometimes referred to as “the Sultanate of Women.”

The south section of the harem, nearest the Second Courtyard and the Tower of Justice, contained the “working” areas – quarters of the eunuchs and women slaves, kitchen, pantry, laundry, hospital, school, etc.; the northern section contained the private apartments of the royal family. Down the length of the family quarters, from the Courtyard of the Black Eunuchs to the Privy Chamber (Has Oda) ran a corridor called the Golden Road (Altınyol). It provided the Sultan a convenient path of access to the Courtyard of the Valide Sultan, the Courtyard of the Chief Consort, and the apartments of the princes, as well as the Sultan’s own chambers.

The exterior surfaces of the harem are decorated with gorgeous tile panels and gilded window grates, and occasionally fountains, as seen below.

Other than members of the Sultan’s family, uncastrated males were prohibited access to the harem, on pain of death. I can never look at these pictures without being reminded of Mika Waltari’s novel The Wanderer, in which the protagonist’s scheming and faithless wife, who becomes fortune-teller to Suleiman the Magnificent’s wife Hurrem, violates the taboo by taking her lover with her into the harem in the guise of a eunuch, and both are garroted by the Sultan’s executioners for that, as well as for telling bogus fortunes.

The interiors of the harem rooms typically had high ceilings with magnificent stained-glass windows around the upper half of the room and intricately carved wooden shutters at ground level, and gorgeous ceramic tiles filling the wall spaces between them.

The carved wooden shutters opened to admit air and light, supplementing the illumination provided by the stained-glass windows.

Chambers serving as living quarters frequently had walls with recessed bays filled with expansive beds or sofas, to all appearances ideal settings for libidinous indulgences.

As one might expect, enormous canopied beds were also among the furnishings in the Sultan’s apartments. But what really drew my interest here was the design of the fireplace. I found the conical hoods of the Ottoman fireplaces quite striking and a little bizarre. I’m not sure whether the design was unique to the Ottoman Empire or was a common feature of early modern dwellings in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, but I expect it fulfilled the purpose of keeping the Sultan and his bedmates warm.

Each Sultan from Suleiman the Magnificent on added his own stamp to the harem, with new pavilions, courts and motifs.

Outside the Harem, on the north side of the Fourth Courtyard, stands the Circumcision Room (Sünnet Odası), a summer kiosk built by Sultan Ibrahim I in 1640 to serve as a chamber for circumcising newborn princes, which was usually done on the seventh day after birth.

The Circumcision Room features some of the rarest and finest blue-and-white tiles in the harem. In the early 17th century Ottoman tiles were heavily influenced by Ming China motifs.

The Circumcision Room also had a number of beautiful stained-glass windows, as in the previous photo and the next, which features a closer look at one of the best.

On a terrace in the northwest corner of the Fourth Courtyard stands an exquisite pavilion built to commemorate the Ottoman victory over the Safavid Persians, and recapture of Baghdad, in 1638. The Persians had conceded Ottoman control of Baghdad in a treaty with Suleiman the Magnificent in 1555, but in 1624 Shah Abbas I had seized Baghdad and slaughtered the Sunni inhabitants in an effort to make the city permanantly a Shiite stronghold. Several Ottoman attempts to retake it failed until finally Sultan Murad IV assumed personal command of the Ottoman armies and, after besieging Baghdad for 39 days, took it again, this time for keeps.

Murad IV died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1640, at the age of 27, and was succeeded by his brother Ibrahim.

Since the reign of Murad I, from 1362, newly-enthroned Sultans had practiced the custom of killing all their brothers to pre-empt struggles over the succession. Mehmed the Conqueror had gone so far as to codify this tradition into law. The first sultan to abandon the tradition of royal fratricide was Ahmed I, builder of the Blue Mosque. Having no sons at the time of his accession in 1603, Ahmed refrained from killing his brother Mustafa because that would endanger the succession. (Ahmed was only 13 at the time and it was not yet known whether he was capable of producing offspring.) Ahmed eventually had three sons, but when he died Mustafa became Sultan anyway. Unfortunately Mustafa turned out to be mentally unstable – he became known as Mustafa the Mad – and was deposed in favor of Ahmed I’s son Osman in 1618. However, Osman II provoked the ire of the janissaries and was assassinated in 1622, whereupon Mustafa was reinstated as Sultan. Proving no more stable than before, Mustafa was dethroned after a year and replaced by another son of Ahmed I, Murad IV. Mustafa was imprisoned in the Old Palace until his death in 1639.

Murad IV was only 11 at the time of his accession, and he only assumed personal rule in 1632. He proved to be little less eccentric than Mustafa, but rather more capable. He banned alcohol, tobacco and coffee in Constantinople on pain of death, and personally enforced his edict, roaming the city incognito to seek out offenders and beheading them on the spot when he caught them. He also like to sit in a kiosk by the water and shoot arrows at passersby who rowed their boats too close to the palace. On the other hand, he led the Ottoman forces to victory against the Safavid Persians in the late 1630s. Ironically, for a person who had banned alcohol and personally enforced the ban, he died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1640, at the age of 27.

Murad IV also seems to have reinstated the tradition of murdering his brothers, three of them, and none of his sons survived infancy. He intended to execute his one remaining brother, Ibrahim, but refrained from doing so in response to the appeal of their mother, Kösem Sultan.

Ibrahim turned out to be quite as mad as Mustafa, if not more so. However, one of his more level-headed accomplishments was the construction of the Iftar Kiosk, a small pavilion with a gilded cradle-vault roof near the Baghdad Kiosk, with a splendid view overlooking the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn. Legend has it that the Sultan made a habit of breaking his fast during Ramadan while seated there. It’s easy to understand why; I wouldn’t have minded having dinner there myself, but the palace kitchen wouldn’t deliver kebabs, and we had to move on.

The Iftar Pavilion and the Baghdad Kiosk share the same terrace with this exquisite little fountain, which was not operating while we were there because the pool was empty. The entire terrace seems to have been a legacy of Ibrahim’s sultanate, an agreeable anomaly in a reign that was otherwise catastrophic. For more about that, you’ll have to wait for the end of this post.

Surrounding Topkapı Palace on the west, north and east is the lush and verdant expanse of Gülhane Park, oldest and largest public park in Istanbul. Sandie was able to capture this view of the north end of the park from one of the terraces in the Fourth Court. In the center of the picture, framed in the trees, is the Column of the Goths, the oldest Roman monument in the city, possibly even predating the time of Constantine the Great. A nearly illegible inscription on the base commemorates a victory of the Romans over the Goths, but which victory is uncertain.

In addition to the view, we greatly enjoyed the stone balustrade of this terrace with its elegant eight-pointed star design.

The Topkapı Palace provides some of the most magnificent views of Istanbul that can be obtained. To the east, one can look out over the Bosphorus, with a view of Asia on the far shore.

To the west of the palace, on the Third Hill of Istanbul, towers the Süleymaniye Mosque, which unfortunately we were not able to visit. It was the supreme architectural achievement of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, who chose as its designer the foremost Ottoman architect of the sixteenth century, Mimar Sinan. Sinan took his inspiration from Hagia Sofia as well as Islamic precedents. The Süleymaniye Mosque, although grandiose, is not as large as Hagia Sofia; however, like Hagia Sofia, its dome collapsed in an earthquake (1766). It has also been damaged by fire (1660) and by a munitions explosion in World War I; thus it has undergone repeated restorations, some of which have effaced the original work of Sinan. It also replaced the Old Palace, which had formerly housed the harem.

Looking north from the Iftar Pavilion, the eye is drawn northward across the Golden Horn to Beyoğlu and its tallest landmark, the Galata Tower.

If you’re still wondering why the reign of Sultan Ibrahim (1640-48) was such a disaster, part of the explanation surely lies in his early childhood. He was born in 1615 and was only two years old when his father, Sultan Ahmed I, died. As mentioned earlier, Sultan Ahmed had ended the custom of killing off his brothers upon ascending the throne, but the tradition of fratricide was replaced by something not much kinder: confinement in a secluded apartment in the palace, known as the kafes or cage, under close supervision, so that they could not engage in plots to usurp the throne. There they remained until the reigning Sultan died, allowing the eldest to succeed to the throne legitimately, or they themselves died without succeeding to the throne. Understandably, this kind of existence, with no normal social life, let alone exposure to imperial affairs or on-the-job training in governance, was not conducive either to the development of leadership skills or even of robust mental health. Ibrahim was the first to demonstrate this principle. His first reaction upon being informed that he was the new Sultan was to assume that his elder brother, Murad, a known homicidal paranoiac, had laid a trap for him so as to secure his execution. Upon seeing Murad’s dead body, he agreed to assume the Sultanate, but left the mundane business of government largely to his mother, Kösem Sultan, and an able Grand Vizier, Kara Mustafa Pasha. He devoted himself mostly to the pleasures of procreation, with the encouragement of his mother, who procured him concubines suited to his tastes, which ran to extremely corpulent women, one of them reputedly weighing 330 pounds. This arrangement fell apart in 1644, when Kösem fell out with Kara Mustafa and Ibrahim fell increasingly under the influence of palace favorites, with the result that the Kara Mustafa was executed, Kösem was exiled from the palace, the treasury was emptied, and a war rashly begun with Venice provoked a Venetian blockade of the Dardanelles, threatening the capital with starvation. By 1648 the game was up; the janissaries revolted, the elders deliberated, and Ibrahim was deposed, imprisoned and then strangled. Ibrahim’s 7-year-old son Mehmed succeeded to the throne.