Dolmabahce Palace, Istanbul
The magnificent Dolmabahce Palace |
What do you feel about paying exorbiant
amounts as entrance fees? Well it pinches me like anything! In India, the
maximum you pay for entering the Taj Mahal as a foreigner is 250 INR. That
makes about 3 euros. I think thats a pretty meagre amount for visiting one of
the wonders of the world. We were shocked for the first time when we were in
Bangkok. The entry fee to the Royal Grand Palace is 800 Baht and that is around
1600 INR! What a hefty price to visit this place! The entry to the KL Tower and
the ticket to the skybridge of Petronas Twin Tower was much less than that in
Malaysia. I am not considering amusement parks or activity centres here; just
pondering on how much is too much to visit a monument. Maybe belonging to a
country where the entry to world heritage sites like Qutab Minar, Red Fort is
just ten bucks, hesitance in paying huge bucks is innate.
In Athens, we took a single entry ticket
that covered all hot spots. It was around 22 euro per person ie around 1800
INR. The situation was similar in Istanbul too. Though the Turkish Lira is one
third of Euro, the prices were almost similar. And no monument had free
entrance except the Blue Mosque. After a super adventurous trip to the Princes Islands, we had planned to explore the city. We started walking from the Kabatas port. We were headed towards the
Dolmabahce Palace.
Postcard like streets of Istanbul |
The city of Istanbul is incredibly
beautiful. I mean it was a stark contrast from the postcard sceneries of white
walls and blue doors of Greece but this place was itself like a photo frame! There were
flowers everywhere..I mean if so many flowers in July end then what would be
the situation in spring. I stopped at almost every flower bed to take pictures.
We crossed the Shangri La hotel whose name was very sweet...'The Bhosphorous
Shangri La'. Finally we reached the Dolmabahce Palace.
In front of the Bosphorous Shangri La |
Dolmabahce Palace |
Dolmabahce Palace is one of the most
glamorous palaces in the whole world. Built in the 19 th century, it is the
largest palace of Turkey. It was the administrative centre of the Ottoman
empire and the home of the last Sultans who earlier lived in the Topkapi
Palace. Dolme means fill in while Bahce means Garden in Turkish. In all the
palace meant ‘the Filled in garden’.
Flower Flower everywhere |
The interiors of the palace closes at half
past five. It was half past six. The long daylight had duped us into thinking
that it was afternoon. Anyways, what to do now..it was our last night in this
city.
We explored the palace as much a possible
from the outside. One thing I noticed about the Turkish people was that they
were very friendly. Since I had landed here, pretty females had been taking
pictures with me. Here too I made friends with three females. They admired my
skirt and we had a short fun conversation. They were not very fluent in
English.
In the end we were very happy. We saved a
lot of bucks as we could not enter the palace. Time was precious for us in this
very tight trip and not entering the palace saved us a lot of time too! It was
a win win situation!
The Sulaiman Mosque in the dusk... |
Top: Forever21
Skirt: From Rajasthan
Purse: Shopper's Stop
4 comments
wow you look so damn great in this colourful look
ReplyDeletehttp://carrieslifestyle.com
Wow - wow -wow - beauuuuutiful you and beautiful place!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pret-a-reporter.co.uk/blog/
Amazing pictures
ReplyDeleteIt's a beautiful city. You are looking stunning as always... :-)
ReplyDelete