In the second part.. we actually mostly visited the gardens and near the Harem Section of the Palace.. Sadly, did not get to go into the Harem...
I found out later in the olden days, this is the Imperial Garden! It is called Gülhane Park.. which means House of Flowers.
In the garden , there are some lion statues.. lions I think might be a symbol of royalty or something as I see them very often in palaces in Istanbul..
The Imperial Harem (Harem-i Hümayûn) occupied one of the sections of the private apartments of the sultan; it contained more than 400 rooms.[75] The harem was home to the sultan's mother, the Valide Sultan; the concubines and wives of the sultan; and the rest of his family, including children; and their servants.[76] The harem consists of a series of buildings and structures, connected through hallways and courtyards. Every service team and hierarchical group residing in the harem had its own living space clustered around a courtyard. The number of rooms is not determined, with probably over 100,[77] of which only a few are open to the public. These apartments (Daires) were occupied respectively by the harem eunuchs, the Chief Harem Eunuch (Darüssaade Ağası), the concubines, the queen mother, the sultan's consorts, the princes and the favourites. There was no trespassing beyond the gates of the harem, except for the sultan, the queen mother, the sultan's consorts and favourites, the princes and the concubines as well as the eunuchs guarding the harem.
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| Photo from 91 Days In Istanbul |
The fountain in the courtyard..
The Baghdad Kiosk (Bağdad Köşkü) is situated on the right side of the terrace with a fountain. It was built to commemorate the Baghdad Campaign of Murad IV after 1638.
It closely resembles the Yerevan Kiosk. The three doors to the porch are located between the sofas. The façade is covered with marble, strips of porphyry and verd antique. The marble panelling of the portico is executed in Cairene Mamluk style. The interior is an example of an ideal Ottoman room.[71] The recessed shelves and cupboards are decorated with early 16th-century green, yellow and blue tiles. The blue-and-white tiles on the walls are copies of the tiles of the Circumcision Room, right across the terrace. With its tiles dating to the 17th century, mother-of-pearl, tortoise-shell decorated cupboard and window panels, this pavilion is one of the last examples of the classical palace architecture.
The doors have very fine inlay work. On the right side of the entrance is a fireplace with a gilded hood. In the middle of the room is a silver 'mangal' (charcoal stove), a present of King Louis XIV of France. From the mid-18th century onwards, the building was used as the library of the Privy Chamber.
But just to give you a a general idea of the rooms in that area, here are some phtos featured on the 91 Days In Istanbul website...
Anyway, Ace saw someone taking photos of them pretending that they were peeing, so he wanted to do that too.. So Max help him take photo lor...
Then we walked through this area which has some art exhibition...
It is actually the Sultan Portrait Gallery where they exhibit Sultan's oil paintings. Apparently during that time, the Sultan was very intrigued by the western style portraits and had one done and so it became like a tradition and they all did their portraits..
” Portrait of Fatih Sultan Mehmed “
” Portrait of Kanuni Sultan Süleyman “
By this time, already 2 plus liao.. so time to go and eat lunch liao.. so we decided it is time to go.. even though we have not finished touring the whole palace... anyway, we already spent like 4 hours here! I really dun know how our friends finished this place in 1.5 hours!:)
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