Tokapai Palace, particularly pictures of the Harem, as it will hopefully give an idea to the detail that is in the mosaics everywhere.
The University
We checked out of our luxurious hotel this morning and checked into another great beauty as we are with our ANZAC tour tonight. We spent most of the day looking around Tokapi Palace. The palace was first built in 1453 and each subsequent sultan kept adding onto it. Mahmut II was the last sultan to live in the palace and in the 19th Century decided to move into more modern places, one of them being the Dolmabache Palace. First we looked in the Harem, a place where the sultan could engaged in debauchery at will. Muratt III had 112 children due to this!!!! The word Harem just means private. All the women in the Harem were foreigners as Islam forbade the enslaving of Muslims, Christians or Jews. As well as the Harem, we looked around the palace and saw the Treasury - most interesting. It contained an 86 carrot diamond ring - protected not only by glass, but also an armed guard. In the religious relics we saw the skull and arm of John the Baptist, we saw the staff Moses used, the carved door and guttering from the Kaaba in Mecca. We even saw some pieces of Mohammed's beard and his footprint in clay!
In the evening we met up with the tour and went out for a Traditional Turkish meal, in another cistern. The setting was beautiful, but the food left a lot to be desired, as did the bored performers, the belly dancer who looked more like a pawn show as she kept wanting men to put money in her bra and then to top it all off we saw a male belly dancer - a very interesting evening. But wait there's more, for this wonder full pleasure and meal of chicken, frozen chips, frozen mixed vege's and some brown apple we paid £33 pp!!!!
We return to our wonderful room which is filled with smoke from the last people, has no air conditioning and is so hot we leave the door open for a long as possible with the draft from the fire escape door blowing in. Oh and did i forget that we had a double bed with a single sheet and when we asked for another sheet they came up with another pillow! Once again we regret being part of a tour - but tomorrow is Gallipoli and that is what we are here for.
The University
We checked out of our luxurious hotel this morning and checked into another great beauty as we are with our ANZAC tour tonight. We spent most of the day looking around Tokapi Palace. The palace was first built in 1453 and each subsequent sultan kept adding onto it. Mahmut II was the last sultan to live in the palace and in the 19th Century decided to move into more modern places, one of them being the Dolmabache Palace. First we looked in the Harem, a place where the sultan could engaged in debauchery at will. Muratt III had 112 children due to this!!!! The word Harem just means private. All the women in the Harem were foreigners as Islam forbade the enslaving of Muslims, Christians or Jews. As well as the Harem, we looked around the palace and saw the Treasury - most interesting. It contained an 86 carrot diamond ring - protected not only by glass, but also an armed guard. In the religious relics we saw the skull and arm of John the Baptist, we saw the staff Moses used, the carved door and guttering from the Kaaba in Mecca. We even saw some pieces of Mohammed's beard and his footprint in clay!
In the evening we met up with the tour and went out for a Traditional Turkish meal, in another cistern. The setting was beautiful, but the food left a lot to be desired, as did the bored performers, the belly dancer who looked more like a pawn show as she kept wanting men to put money in her bra and then to top it all off we saw a male belly dancer - a very interesting evening. But wait there's more, for this wonder full pleasure and meal of chicken, frozen chips, frozen mixed vege's and some brown apple we paid £33 pp!!!!
We return to our wonderful room which is filled with smoke from the last people, has no air conditioning and is so hot we leave the door open for a long as possible with the draft from the fire escape door blowing in. Oh and did i forget that we had a double bed with a single sheet and when we asked for another sheet they came up with another pillow! Once again we regret being part of a tour - but tomorrow is Gallipoli and that is what we are here for. 
