Private Tour: Topkapi Palace including Harem Entrance
Istanbul, Turkey
Trip Type: Half-day Tours
Duration: 3 hours
Your own private tour will follow an adaptive route that visits the latest openings in the palace, giving you access to the best of Topkapi Palace away from tourist crowd, including famous and mysterious palace harem. Certified local English-speaking tour guides will provide you with their undivided attention in order for your to get best possible impression from the visit, any day you choose to visit.
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Your own private tour will follow an adaptive route that visits the latest openings in the palace, giving you access to the best of Topkapi Palace away from tourist crowd, including famous and mysterious palace harem. Certified local English-speaking tour guides will provide you with their undivided attention in order for your to get best possible impression from the visit, any day you choose to visit.Topkapi Palace is as mysterious as beautiful royal residence of the Ottoman Turks, that was a center of a 600-year empire run by sultans. On this private extended Topkapi Palace and harem tour you’ll explore the palace with an expert local tour guide, picked for their passion, storytelling abilities, and English-language skills. Since the tour is private, your only other company will be anyone you choose to bring along and you will have the undivided attention of your guide as well as the luxury of moving at your own pace through one of the greatest royal residences in the world. The palace itself is beautiful, but it’s the stories and facts that really bring it to life.
You’ll tour the best sights of the palace, including areas only recently opened to the public. These include the palace kitchens, where up to 800 cooks dished up 6,000 meals a day during busy periods. You’ll also stop by the foot soldiers’ barracks, pipe room, private baths, and the ornate prayer room.
A sure highlight is your visit to the palace harem. Here you’ll find the private living quarters of the sultans’ wives, concubines, children, eunuchs, and even mothers. Learn the complicated politics of the sultans’ private lives and how the women of the harem came to influence the decisions that shaped the entire empire. Because it requires an extra ticket, few visitors ever see the harem, much less learn its secrets.
You’ll also visit all the best general access areas of the palace. Learn why the Audience Room was the most terrifying spot in the palace (if you were a poor performing Vizier, that is); and discover the stunning kiosks, set in colorful gardens overlooking the Bosphorus. Your guide will give you an introduction to the other rooms from outside, leaving you to visit on your own and at your own pace after the tour.
You’ll tour the best sights of the palace, including areas only recently opened to the public. These include the palace kitchens, where up to 800 cooks dished up 6,000 meals a day during busy periods. You’ll also stop by the foot soldiers’ barracks, pipe room, private baths, and the ornate prayer room.
A sure highlight is your visit to the palace harem. Here you’ll find the private living quarters of the sultans’ wives, concubines, children, eunuchs, and even mothers. Learn the complicated politics of the sultans’ private lives and how the women of the harem came to influence the decisions that shaped the entire empire. Because it requires an extra ticket, few visitors ever see the harem, much less learn its secrets.
You’ll also visit all the best general access areas of the palace. Learn why the Audience Room was the most terrifying spot in the palace (if you were a poor performing Vizier, that is); and discover the stunning kiosks, set in colorful gardens overlooking the Bosphorus. Your guide will give you an introduction to the other rooms from outside, leaving you to visit on your own and at your own pace after the tour.
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