Tour Programme

Dolmabahçe Palace,Dolmabahçe Harem,Binbirdirek cistern,Süleymaniye Mosque,Little Hagia sophia – Lunch,Boat trip on the Golden Horn and Bosphyorus – Bosphorus Bridge,Maiden tower (from the sea)Transport and Guide Everyday(Except Monday)(This tour is in Russian only)

Dolmabahçe Palace

Dolmabahçe Palace was built by Architect Garabet Balyan in 1855 during the reign of Sultan Abdülmecid. The area where Dolmabahçe Palace is located was filled between 1603 and 1622. Since it was used as a garden for a while after it was filled, its name was Dolmabahçe. Dolmabahçe Palace is spread over an area of 15,000 square meters. Its front is 350 m and its dock is 650 m wide. There are 220 rooms, 8 baths, 22 halls, 1 library.

Today, when entered from the direction of Dolmabahçe Clock Tower, two separate structures are encountered. At the seaside is the Pasha Apartment, where the pashas wear their brocaded ceremonial dresses while going before the sultan, and the Mefruşati Hümayun room behind it. These are followed by the garden with the pool, the headmaster, aide-de-camps and the clerks of the Mabeyini Hümayün. The reception hall attracts attention with its magnificent appearance. Hanging from the ceiling, the chandelier with 750 candles and weighing 4.5 tons is a gift from Queen Victoria of England. On the upper floor, there are the rooms of the Haremi Hümayün, the sultan and the concubine;

Abdülmecit lived in Dolmabahçe Palace for 6 years and Abdülaziz lived for 15 years. Murat V completed his three-month reign here. II. Although Abdulhamid spent the first months of his reign here, he later moved to Yıldız Palace. After the palace was empty for 32 years, Mehmet V reşat constantly, VI. Mehmet Vahidettin lived for a short time, and the last Caliph Abdülmecit lived for two years. When Atatürk came to Istanbul, he stayed in Dolmabahçe Palace and died on 10 November 1938 in room 17.

The Binbirdirek Cistern, also known as the Filoksenos Cistern (Greek: Κινστέρνα Φιλοξένου kinsterna Philoxenou), is the second largest cistern in Istanbul. According to ancient Byzantine sources, it was built in the 4th century. The 3584 m2 cistern with 224 columns inside has dried up over time and has been used as a workshop since the 16th century.

Binbirdirek Cistern

The columns in the cistern are made up of two overlapping bodies, and there are truncated pyramid-shaped capitals on top of them. It is known that the Greek letters engraved on the column bodies are the signs of the stonemasons who worked in the construction of the cistern and worked on the columns. It is located to the west of the hippodrome. It has been cleaned in recent years and is connected to the road passing by by a gallery. The cistern, which has been transformed into an easily visited, interesting and beautiful place to visit, measures 64 x 56 meters. It was built by the Roman senator Philoxenos during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Constantine I in the 4th century.212 of the 224 original columns have survived to the present day. The brick vaults of the space surrounded by thick walls, the double columns that carry them, superimposed with a partition, and the unworked capitals display interesting images. Small sales aisles, cafe and exhibition areas, and the hollow section in the middle of the cistern, where the original height of the columns can be seen, were built during the renovation.

Süleymaniye Mosque

It was built between 1550 and 1557 by Master Architect Sinan in the name of Suleiman the Magnificent. There are many buildings such as madrasah, hospital, Turkish bath, library soup kitchen around the mosque. The inner courtyard of the mosque is called the "White Harem". The reason is that it is completely covered with marble. The mosque has four minarets. Each minaret was built in a corner of the courtyard. Two of these minarets are 76 meters high and the other two are 56 meters high. While the 76-meter minarets have three balconies, the 56-meter minarets have two balconies each. A total of 10 balconies indicate that Suleiman the Magnificent was the 10th sultan of the Empire, and four minarets indicate that he was the 4th sultan after the conquest of Istanbul. There are two sundials on the south wall of the mosque. According to the inscription under the clocks, it was made by Muvakkit Abdurrahman in 1773. But now these sundial lines are so lost that an ignorant or unattended eye cannot detect it. The iron bars on the wall are part of the clock. It is the first four minaret mosque built in Istanbul. The floor size of the mosque is 61 * 70 meters. The interior area of the mosque is 3,163 square meters. The height of the dome is 53 meters, the diameter of the dome is 32 meters, and the thickness of the dome is 74 cm. There are 32 windows on the dome and 138 windows inside the mosque. The stained glass windows of the mosque were made by Sarhoş İbrahim Efendi. Mimar Sinan did not apply a drawing he applied in a mosque to another work or mosque.

When you look at the lighting system of the mosque, they are ostrich eggs that are emptied after every 3-4 lamps. An odor that comes from ostrich eggs but cannot be perceived by humans was put in by Mimar Sinan, as it kept spiders away from the mosque, that is, from that building.