Topkapi Palace & Harem

Mehmed II began Topkapi soon after he conquered Constantinople, and from the fifteenth century until the move to Dolmabahce in the 1850s it was the heart of an empire that stretched from Hungary to Arabia. It is not a single palace but a sequence of courts, each more private than the last, laid out across the hilltop where the Golden Horn meets the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara. You pass through the Imperial Gate into the First Court, a public park where the Byzantine church of Hagia Irene still stands, then through the Gate of Salutation into the Second Court, where the Imperial Council met under its golden grille and the vast palace kitchens now display one of the world's great collections of Chinese porcelain. The Gate of Felicity leads to the Third Court, the sultan's inner world: the Audience Chamber, the library of Ahmed III, the Treasury with its emerald-studded Topkapi Dagger and the 86-carat Spoonmaker's Diamond, and the Chamber of the Holy Relics, where a muezzin recites the Koran beside relics of the Prophet. Beyond lies the Fourth Court, a garden of kiosks and terraces, including the Baghdad Kiosk of 1639, sheathed in Iznik tiles, with views across the water to Asia. And then there is the Harem, the private quarters of the sultan's family, a maze of tiled corridors, courtyards and domed chambers, of which visitors see a carefully chosen route. The combined ticket for the palace, the Harem and Hagia Irene is the one to buy; it costs a little more than the palace alone and the Harem is the highlight for many.

Practicalities first. Topkapi is closed on Tuesdays, which catches out more visitors than any other rule in the city, and on the first day of the Ramadan holiday. Ticket offices work roughly nine to five, with one timetable all year, and in summer the palace has run Saturday night openings on a separate ticket. The combined ticket covering the palace, the Harem and Hagia Irene is valid for a day, children up to six enter free, and the official Museum Pass Istanbul includes the palace and Harem. Queues at the ticket windows and at security can be long by mid-morning, so arrive at opening or buy ahead; Tiqets sells skip-the-ticket-line entry with an audio guide and guided options that include the Harem.

How to plan the route: most people walk straight to the Treasury and the Holy Relics and meet a crowd. Better to go to the Harem first, while it is quiet, then the Third Court rooms, then the Treasury, and to finish in the Fourth Court with tea on the terrace overlooking the Bosphorus. Allow two to three hours for the courts and the Treasury and around half a day with the Harem and Hagia Irene; the Harem alone takes forty-five minutes to an hour. Rooms close for restoration from time to time and displays rotate, so do not be surprised if a pavilion is shuttered. The palace sits on a hill with plenty of walking and some steps, and summer afternoons in the open courts are hot, so bring water and a hat.

Why it matters: Topkapi is less about grand rooms than about how an empire worked. The Imperial Council chamber, where the sultan could listen unseen behind his grille; the eunuchs' quarters guarding the Harem; the pages' school in the Third Court that trained the empire's administrators; the kitchens built to feed thousands; the relics that made the sultan caliph of the Islamic world. The Iznik tiles of the Harem and the Circumcision Room are among the finest anywhere, and the views from the Fourth Court terraces, across the mouth of the Bosphorus to Uskudar and the Asian shore, are the reason the palace was built here. Pair it with Hagia Sophia, next door, and the Archaeology Museums, in the old palace gardens down the hill.