Topkapi Palace

Friday, March 21st, 2014 Istanbul
Last night we ate at the Magnaura Cafe around the block. It was a nice atmosphere with wood-burning fireplace and window from the 2nd floor overlooking the street but the meal was mediocre at best. Afterwards, when the waiter asked, Anita mentioned that her chicken was overcooked. He apologized and gave us each a free raki (aniseed flavoured grape liqueur which when mixed with water turns white and is called "lion's milk"). The unofficial national drink. Not bad.
Although Turkey is 95% Muslim, the national beer brand, Efes, and various Turkish wines are sold in all the little corner markets. Efes is pretty good.
This morning after breakfast we headed for Topkapi Palace just up the street. There wasn't a cloud in the sky all day and the temperature must be close to 20C and even more in the sun. Since Friday is the Muslim equivalent of Christian Sunday, there were lots of people in the streets and parks, especially school groups doing tours.
Topkapi Palace is a huge walled complex of buildings where the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and his entourage lived from about the 15th to the 19th century. There isn't any one palace building like the palaces of western Europe. Rather, there are many buildings for government offices, kitchens, stables and guards. Then inside all of this is the harem, which literally means "private". That's where the sultan, his family of 4 official wives and 300 concubines, the eunuch guards and servants, the princes and princesses all lived.

 Inside the palace walls there are 4 courtyards, all very parklike. One of the first buildings we entered was the imperial treasury which is now a series of 3 or 4 rooms with glass cases holding precious artifacts. There are lots of diamond, ruby and emerald jewels. We saw the famous Topkapi Dagger which has 3 huge emeralds on the handle. It was the subject of the 1964 jewel heist movie "Topkapi".

 At the end of the 4th court, there are terraces overlooking the Sea of Marmora and the Bosporus Strait.

 Some of the buildings were built to celebrate different military victories and just look like a nice place for the family to hang out for the afternoon and look out over the water.

 The walls and ceilings are covered with ceramic tiles. Sometimes it seemed to be a bit much.

 Springtime in Topkapi Palace. The flowers smelled beautiful.

Here is another building made for relaxation. There seemed to be a lot of places to do nothing.

 This was a part of the harem with more wood. The "favourites" among the concubines lived here. Although it's foreign to our ideas of marriage and family, it was a great honour for a girl to be chosen to be a concubine. And unlike the way Hollywood movies might depict the life, many of the concubines never slept with the sultan. The sultan's mother did a lot of the choosing for him and to bear the sultan's child was a really big deal. Harem living was a lot more complicated and subtle than we might think.

 Anita laughed at me because, having seen all the marble floors and ceramic tile walls, I still liked this simple pebble walkway. A lot of the decor and jewels just struck me as too ostentatious.

As we walked past the Aya Sofia this afternoon, the light seemed nice to take another picture.
A few random thoughts so far:
In the streets, there are some Turkish women completely covered in the full black burkha outfit. A few are literally covered and look through a dark veil. Others have just their eyes showing. Then there are more women who wear head scarves. But the majority dress like westerners, although modestly. Perhaps it's the time of year and clothing might be more revealing in hot weather but we don't think so.
Turks seem to value respect and courtesy, much like everyone else in the world. There are lots of salesmen in your face selling boat trips on the Bosporus, carpets, tiles, meals in restaurants and so on but if you say, " No thank you, not interested", they don't hound you. Some tourists ignore them completely but we always respond respectfully. That works better. Sometimes we end up joking with them. One guy today, after asking, "Americans?" and we said, "No, Canadians", responded with "Justin Bieber, so sorry". This has been true everywhere we have traveled. It's not hard to get along with Turks, so far.
The Four Seasons Hotel right across the street from our window used to be the infamous Sultanahmet Prison where Billy Hayes of Midnight Express fame probably didn't stay but at least one local said that he did. Anyway, now it's a fancy hotel.
Tomorrow, the Grand Bazaar and maybe the Basilica Cistern.