Dolmabahçe Palace Tickets and Tours | GetExperience.com

Dolmabahce is what happened when the sultans decided Topkapi looked medieval. It went up between 1843 and 1856 on filled ground at the edge of the Bosphorus. The name means filled garden.

What the money bought

• The bill. Five million Ottoman lira, about thirty-five tonnes of gold, paid by a treasury already borrowing abroad.
• The scale. 285 rooms, 44 halls, six hamams, and fourteen tonnes of gold leaf on the ceilings.
• The ceremonial hall. A 36-metre dome over a chandelier of 750 lamps weighing four and a half tonnes.
• The staircase. Baccarat crystal balusters, and the thing everyone stops in front of.

Two stories worth correcting

The chandelier is usually called a gift from Queen Victoria. A receipt found in 2006 shows the sultan paid for it. The story outlived the evidence.

The clocks are the other one. Ataturk died here at five past nine on 10 November 1938, and every clock was stopped at that hour. Today only the one in his room still shows it.

How the visit runs

Entry is on a guided route through two sections, and you do not wander off it. The selamlik holds the state rooms, the harem the private quarters. An hour and a half does both.

Practical

• Closed Mondays. National Palaces shuts everything it runs that day, so a Monday in Besiktas needs another plan.
• Two wings, two prices. Selamlik alone, or both together for noticeably more. Plenty of people find one wing enough.
• No overtaking. Once a group sets off you move at its pace, so a crowded slot is a slow ninety minutes.
• Inside rules. Shoe covers at the door, and photography restricted through most of the route.
• Getting there. The tram and the Bosphorus ferries both end at Kabatas, five minutes' walk south. The coast road seizes up at rush hour.
• The gardens. Free, on the water, and worth twenty minutes either side of the tour.