Dolmabahce Palace » Distance: 8 km. Located along the coast of the Bosphorus in Beşiktaş, 300 yards from the Beşiktaş ferry-boat quay, this palace is the grandest imperial Ottoman residence. It was constructed by the Armenian architects Karabet and Nikogos Balyan for Sultan Abdülmecid (1839-61) who, preferring a more modern residence, decided to move out [...]
Haghia Sophia Museum » Distance: 250 m. Haghia Sophia Museum is located in Sultanahmet across from Sultan Ahmed Mosque. Considered one of the finest architectural works in the world, it was originally built as a church. Construction began during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine 1, but was only completed in AD 360 during [...]
Yildiz Palace » Distance: 10 km. Located in between Beşiktaş and Ortaköy, in the Yildiz Park the Yıldız palace is a complex which extends 500,000 spuare meters and consists of several pavilions(köşk), palace buildings (kasr), and other service and management buildings. The name of this complex comes from the pavilion built by Sultan Mahmud II [...]
Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art » Distance: 250 m. This museum contains one of the most important collections of Turkish and Islamic art in the world. First established in 1914 at the Daruzziyafe of the Süleymaniye Complex, it was moved in 1938 to its present location on the site of the Byzantine Hippodrome, in [...]
Topkapi Palace » Distance: 300 m. Topkapi is the largest and oldest palace in the world to survive to our day. In 1924 it was turned into a museum at Atatiirk’s request. Situated on the acropolis, the site of the first settlement in Istanbul, it commands an impressive view of the Golden Horn, the Bosphorus [...]
MARDİN Area: 12.760 km² Population: 1.154.418 (1990) Traffic Code: 47 The province of Mardin, is a poetic city of Southeast Anatolia Region reflecting the impression as if the time had stopped with its present architectural, ethnographic, archeological, historic and visual merits. The province of Mardin hosts mosques, mausoleums, churches, monasteries and similar religious creations parallel [...]
Before the Byzantine Empire Excavations conducted at Yarımburgaz cave have uncovered evidence of human culture in the region of Küçükçekmece Lake. Collective inhabitation of Istanbul, which would later become one of the most crowded cities in the world, dates back to the Sixth Millennium B.C.E. These societies inhabited caves on both the European and Anatolian [...]
