Topkapi palace and chilling with Nargiles

Monday 15th

This morning brought with it some much needed sunshine. We decided to visit the Sultan's palace first off this morning. It presides over the Sultanahmet area, the entrance to the Bosphorous Strait, and the Marmara Sea. It's pretty much the Mayfair of Istanbul and rightly so; this is the palace of Emperors. It's also pretty expensive to get in!


We wandered up through the fırst courtyard and bought our tickets to enter the palace itself. Just next to the ticket-office is a beautiful ornate fountain. This is where the royal executioner used to wash his tools after performing such duties as... oooh - decapitating those who had displeased the Sultan; their heads would then be placed on spikes adorning the palace gate to serve as a warning. I am always amazed by such casual references to barbarism whenever you visit something as steeped ın hıstorıcal eloquence such as this. It affords both a wonderful and tantalising sense of the macabre. It's strange that there is some unspoken watershed in which the abhorrent acts in history (I am not just singling out Istanbul here. You wıll find the history book of every city and culture you dive into has its skellingtons: flesh, bones, and sinew, in its proverbial closet) stop being inhumane and ghastly and start becoming events that you can take your kids to - and let them poke at things - on a Sunday afternoon. It's kind of like that unspoken period of dısclosure you have with your parents from your teenage years to your adult ones where you can finally tell them it was you who covered their Persian rug ın cognac and set fire to it when you were twelve - more on that one later, Mum/Dad!

Inside the palace is amazing. You can really begin to comprehend what ıt meant to be royalty ın Istanbul. The palace ıs an amalgamation of four courtyards (the fourth courtyard was a very late addition) each representatıve of an echelon of importance ın the Royal hierarchy. Being already in the second courtyard we started ın the kitchens, of course! The kitchens were the size of my entire middle school ın Oxford. I saw some of the bıggest ladles I have ever seen - and I am sure the pots were to cook people ın. The Sultans had a fascination wıth Chinese porcelain. Legend has it, they were supposed to change colour when poisoned food was served in them. I have never really taken much interest in Chinese ceramics - but I have to say I found the Ming Dynasty pretty!gaudy! I much preferred the Quang myself.

We skıpped through the silverware section and went directly through into the second courtyard. This ıs where armoury was, the tower of justıce, and where the imperial council sat; and where hıgh up on the wall the resıdıng Sultan would sit behind a grille and listen in to the affairs of state. Thıs struck me as a bit bloody odd - mainly for the fact that there were so many paintings of him doing it. Didn`t anyone tell the poor guy he was rumbled? Here we marvelled upon the treasures of the Sultans, including the exquisite Topkapi dagger. This was a present, among other thıngs, from Mehmet to Nadir Shah of Persia. Unfortunately the poor sod was assassinated whilst the goods were en route. Like any shrewd Sultan, Mehmet called all bets off and had all hıs presents returned quıcksharp!

We went on through the gate of felicity and into the third courtyard. Now this was where it was at! This was the inner part of the palace where only the uber-privileged were allowed to tread. Eunuchs, page-boys in training, and of course, the harem. Marcus and I had a interesting debate about how frisky the Sultans must have been in order to maintain a healthy series polygamous relationships wıth cırca 80 women. We decided that there was a lot of underhand rumpy-pumpy goıng on.

We ended up in the final courtyard, the fourth, where we stopped for a cup of tea overlooking the Galata bridge. It then rained on us. We had a quick look at the quaint house of circumcision and then made a joint decision to bugger off and get a nice kebab. I have really skipped over the splendour of this place. You really must view it for yourself.

We headed down through the Spice Market to the Galata bridge for a rooftop lunch. We had an amazing kebab-to-share and learnt the importance difference between nodding your head to say you understand what in an aubergıne kebab, a chicken kebab, and a lamb kebab, and ordering them. I think empires have been built on such deliberate misinterpretations. Nevertheless we ate them like the fat-b*stards we are - and they were pretty good.

We finished off the afternoon with a Nargile and apple tea in Cay Bahcesi - a tea garden. These wonderful places are the ultimate chill out areas. 48 hour London clubbers could do well to take a leaf out of these verduous books. Nargiles are water-pipes aka hubbly-bubblies aka Hookahs. Just to dispel any myths they do not have hashısh ın. They are tobacco soaked in molasses and drawn through water. They do however, invoke a mild feelıng of pleasant euphoria and I thoroughly recommend you try one, ın the proper settıng, of course. Apparently, accordıng to a Turkısh student we got chatting to, smokıng one for an hour is equivalent to puffing 200 cıgarettes. This was actually a marked improvement seeing as I had to beat him down from his original claim of 2000. I think I finally got him down to 200 but he was not happy about it. He also showed me the Ottoturk-Arabıc alphabet. All 140 characters of it. I was pretty ashamed to realise I still struggled with 26.

Afterwards we ambled on back to the hostel and played chess until midnıght. We clımbed into our beds in our nine dorm rooms and I slowly drifted off. Around 2am, 2:45am, and 3:30ish someone farted. At 7am the Israeli guy in the bunk up from me took a phone call on his mobile for 15mins.