Topkapı Palace

Wednesday morning we again rose early as the call to prayer echoed through the hotel courtyard before sunrise. After breakfast we decided to visit the attraction closest to our hotel, Topkapı Palace.

The Topkapi Palace is the biggest and one of the most popular sites to visit in Istanbul. It was built in in the mid 1400s by the sultan Mehmet II on top of a hill in a small peninsula, set between the Golden Horn, the Sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus strait, with great views of the Asian side. The palace was the political center of the Ottoman Empire between the 15th and 19th centuries, until they built Dolmabahce Palace by the waterside.

The palace is home to the Topkapi Emerald Dagger, a renowned jewel-studded dagger of mid-18th century origin. The dagger is preserved and displayed for public viewing at the treasury of the Topkapi Palace Museum. Unfortunately for us that part of the palace was under renovation so we were unable to see the original. But we did see the replica on display in the gift shop. 

The popularity of the dagger, as well as the palace, were given a major boost worldwide when it was made the subject of a popular Hollywood heist film in 1964, "The Light of Day."

The palace was vast and half of it seemed to be under renovation. The half that was open was in desperate need of renovation. Still it was fascinating as a hall led to a room which led to a courtyard which led to more halls and more rooms and more courtyards which entered into additional halls and additional rooms and additional courtyards which emptied into multiple halls and multiple rooms and multiple courtyards. 

After several hours the tour gently shifted from reading inscriptions and taking pictures to trying to find the way out. When we finally exited the palace we had a quick lunch and then headed back to the hotel for a much needed nap. The exhaustion of the palace combined with our ongoing struggle adjusting to the time change made for a fast end of the day. Our long list of things to see and do in this massive and ancient global city was reduced by one. Not exactly what we expected. With only two days left in Istanbul we were going to have to move fast.