Destination Guides Turkey

The Topkapi Palace (Turkish: Topkapi Sarayi) is a palace in Istanbul, Turkey, which was the official and primary residence in the city of the Ottoman Sultans, from 1465 to 1853. The palace was a setting for state occasions and royal entertainments and is a major tourist attraction today. The name directly translates as "Cannongate Palace", from the palace being named after a nearby gate. Initial construction started in 1459, ordered by Sultan Mehmed II, the conqueror of Byzantine Constantinople. The palace is a complex made up of four main courtyards and many smaller buildings. At the height of its existence as a royal residence, the palace was home to as many as 4,000 people, formerly covering a larger area with a long shoreline. The complex has been expanded over the centuries, with many renovations such as for the 1509 earthquake and 1665 fire. Topkapı Palace gradually lost its importance at the end of the 17th century, as the Sultans preferred to spend more time in their new palaces along the Bosporus. In 1853, Sultan Abdül Mecid I decided to move the court to the newly built Dolmabahçe Palace, the first European-style palace in the city. Some functions, such as the imperial treasury, the library, mosque and mint, were retained though. After the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1921, Topkapi Palace was transformed by government decree on April 3, 1924 into a museum of the imperial era. The Topkapı Palace Museum is under the administration of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The palace complex has hundreds of rooms and chambers, but only the most important are accessible to the public today. The complex is guarded by officials of the ministry as well as armed guards of the Turkish military. The palace is full of examples of Ottoman architecture and also contains large collections of porcelain, robes, weapons, shields, armor, Ottoman miniatures, Islamic calligraphic manuscripts and murals, as well as a display of Ottoman treasure and jewelry.

The Basilica Cistern (Turkish: "Yerebatan Sarayi" or "Yerebatan Sarnıcı"), is the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns that still lie beneath the city of Istanbul, former Constantinople, Turkey. The cistern, located in the historical peninsula of Istanbul next to the Hagia Sophia, was built during the reign of emperor Justinian I in the 6th century, the age of glory of Eastern Rome, also called the Byzantine Empire.

The Grand Bazaar (or Covered Bazaar, Turkish: Kapalicarsi ("Covered Bazaar")) in Istanbul is one of the largest covered markets in the world with more than 58 streets and 6,000 shops, and has between 250,000 and 400,000 visitors daily. It is well known for its jewelry, pottery, spice, and carpet shops. Many of the stalls in the bazaar are grouped by type of goods, with special areas for leather coats, gold jewelry and the like. The bazaar contains two bedestens (domed masonry structures built for storage and safe keeping), the first of which was constructed between 1455 and 1461 by the order of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. The bazaar was vastly enlarged in the 16th century, during the reign of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, and in 1894 underwent a major restoration following an earthquake.

Aya Sophia is a former patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey. Famous in particular for its massive dome, it is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture. It was the largest cathedral ever built in the world for nearly a thousand years, until the completion of the Medieval Seville Cathedral in 1520. The current building was originally constructed as a church between A.D. 532 and 537 on the orders of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, and was in fact the third Church of the Holy Wisdom to occupy the site (the previous two had both been destroyed by riots). It was designed by two architects, Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles. The Church contained a large collection of holy relics and featured, among other things, a 50 foot (15 m) silver iconostasis. It was the patriarchal church of the Patriarch of Constantinople and the religious focal point of the Eastern Orthodox Church for nearly 1000 years. In 1453, Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and Sultan Mehmed II ordered the building to be converted into a mosque. The bells, altar, iconostasis, and sacrificial vessels were removed, and many of the mosaics were eventually plastered over. The Islamic features - such as the mihrab, the minbar, and the four minarets outside - were added over the course of its history under the Ottomans. It remained as a mosque until 1935, when it was converted into a museum by the Republic of Turkey. For almost 500 years the principal mosque of Istanbul, Hagia Sophia served as a model for many of the Ottoman mosques such as the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Blue Mosque of Istanbul), the Sehzade Mosque, the Suleymaniye Mosque, and the Rustem Pasha Mosque. Although it is sometimes referred to as Saint Sophia (Greek for wisdom), the Greek name in full is Ναός τῆς Ἁγίας τοῦ Θεοῦ Σοφίας, Church of the Holy Wisdom of God, and it was dedicated to the Holy Wisdom of God rather than a specific saint named Sophia.

Maidens Tower (Turkish: Kİz Kulesi), also known in the ancient Greek and medieval Byzantine periods as Leanders Tower (Tower of Leandros), sits on a small islet located in the Bosphorus strait off the coast of Uskudar in Istanbul, Turkey.

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Turkish: Sultanahmet Camii) is a historical mosque in Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey and the capital of the Ottoman Empire (from 1453 to 1923). The mosque is one of several mosques known as the Blue Mosque for the blue tiles adorning the walls of its interior. It was built between 1609 and 1616, during the rule of Ahmed I. Like many other mosques, it also comprises a tomb of the founder, a madrasah and a hospice. The Sultan Ahmed Mosque has become one of the greatest tourist attractions of Istanbul.

A caravanserai (Persian: كاروانسرا karvansara, Turkish kervansaray) was a roadside inn where travelers could rest and recover from the days journey. Caravanserais supported the flow of commerce, information, and people across the network of trade routes covering Asia, North Africa, and South-Eastern Europe. Most typically it was a building with a square or rectangular walled exterior, with a single portal wide enough to permit large or heavily laden beasts such as camels to enter. The courtyard was almost always open to the sky, and the inside walls of the enclosure were outfitted with a number of identical stalls, bays, niches, or chambers to accommodate merchants and their servants, animals, and merchandise. Caravanserais provided water for human and animal consumption, washing, and ritual ablutions. Sometimes they even had elaborate baths. They also kept fodder for animals and had shops for travellers where they could acquire new supplies. In addition, there could be shops where merchants could dispose of some of their goods. The word is also rendered as caravansarai or caravansary. The Persian word karvansara is a compound word combining karvansara (caravan) with sara (palace, building with enclosed courts), to which the Persian suffix -yi is added. Here caravan means a group of traders, pilgrims, or other travelers, engaged in long distance travel. The caravanserai was also known as a khan (Persian خان) or han (Turkish).

The Silk Road, or Silk Route, refers to a trade route through regions of the Asian continent connecting East and West Asia. Geographically, it is an interconnected society of ancient trade routes connecting Chang an (todays Xi an) to Europe and the Near East. It was central to cultural transmission by linking traders, merchants, pilgrims, monks, soldiers, nomads and urban dwellers from China to the Mediterranean Sea for thousands of years. The route enabled people to transport trade goods, especially luxuries such as silk, satins, musk, rubies, diamonds, pearls and rhubarb from different parts of the country in China, India, and Asia Minor to the Mediterranean, extending over 8,000 km (5,000 miles). Trade on the Silk Road was a significant factor in the development of the great civilizations of China, Egypt, Persia, Arabia, India, Rome, and Byzantium and helped to lay the foundations for the modern world in several respects. Although the term, the Silk Road, implies a continuous journey, very few travelers traveled the route from end to end. For the most part, goods were transported by a series of agents on varying routes and trade took place in the bustling mercantile markets of the oasis towns. The Central Asian part of the trade route was initiated around 114 BC by the Han Dynasty[3] largely through the missions and explorations of Zhang Qian although earlier trade across the continents had already existed. In the late Middle Ages, use of the Silk Road declined as sea trade increased.