I love this place ... Istanbul’s Dolmabahçe Palace. It was built by Sultan Abdul Mecit back in 1856.
Once, long ago while visiting Istanbul, I was wandering with a Turkish friend who ‘knew people’.
He talked with one of the more important employees at Dolmabahçe Palace. We were told to come back after closing time, and voila, we were gifted the most magnificent tour of the empty palace grounds.
It was so surreal, and beautiful. As so often happens, it was like stepping inside a magnificent book.
Dolmabahçe Palace was also the palace that Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founding leader of the modern republic of Turkey He used it as a presidential house in summers, the palace where he enacted some of his most important works.
Atatürk spent his last days and died here on 10 November 1938.
