Topkapı Palace Tickets and Tours | GetExperience.com

Topkapi was the seat of the Ottoman sultans from the 1460s until they moved to Dolmabahce in 1856. It is not one building. It is a walled compound of four courtyards on the headland where the Bosphorus, the Horn and the Marmara meet.

How the courtyards work

The plan is the point. Each courtyard is more private than the last, and the gates between them ranked the empire. Almost none of that is signposted.

• Second courtyard. The imperial kitchens, which cooked for some four thousand people a day and now hold the porcelain.
• Third courtyard. The treasury, with the emerald-hilted Topkapi dagger and the Spoonmaker's Diamond, and the chamber of relics beside it.
• The Harem. Hundreds of tiled rooms where the sultan's family lived under the authority of his mother.
• The terrace. The far end of the compound, above the water, and the best view in the old city.

How long it really takes

Two to three hours is honest, and the Harem adds to that. People underestimate the distances and run out of afternoon. Without someone explaining the gates, it is a long walk past handsome walls.

The Blue Mosque is five minutes away. Hagia Sophia is closer still. That is why one guided day usually swallows all three.

Practical

• Closed Tuesdays. The one weekday that catches people out, every week.
• The Harem. How it is ticketed has changed more than once, so check what yours covers before the gate. Skipping the Harem is the real mistake.
• Timed entry. The queue at the Imperial Gate builds from mid-morning and does not thin. Take the earliest slot you can face.
• Open sky. The courtyards have almost no shade and the cobbles are uneven. Hat, water, flat soles.
• Photography. Restricted in the treasury and the relics chamber, and the restriction is enforced.
• Combining. A museum pass starts paying back from the third state site, and there are enough of those within a kilometre.