Best Palaces in Istanbul

The last great Ottoman palace, built directly on the Bosphorus in Beşiktaş. Four and a half tonnes of Bohemian crystal hang in its Ceremonial Hall. All clocks are stopped at 09:05 — the moment Atatürk died here in 1938. Of all the palaces in Istanbul, this is the one that refuses to be forgotten.

Cross to the Asian side of the Bosphorus and you find Istanbul's most underrated palace. Built as a summer retreat, Beylerbeyi is smaller and quieter than Dolmabahce — and many visitors find it more beautiful for exactly that reason. Empress Eugénie of France came here in 1869 and never forgot it.

Burned down in 1910, its marble shell stood empty for eighty years before being reborn as one of Istanbul's great hotels. The original 19th-century walls still stand on the Bosphorus in Beşiktaş. Non-guests can experience it over afternoon tea or dinner — with one of the most famous pool views in the city.

Sultan Abdülhamid II built himself an entire world inside a forested hillside above Beşiktaş — and never left it. The Sale Pavilion contains a single Hereke carpet measuring 400 square metres, the largest ever woven. The surrounding park is free, quiet, and one of Istanbul's best-kept secrets.

A baroque marble jewel on the Asian Bosphorus shore, set where two streams meet in the meadow the Ottomans called the Sweet Waters of Asia. Small enough to be intimate, ornate enough to feel imperial — and almost entirely undiscovered by the tourist crowds that fill Istanbul's major palaces.

Hidden in a valley in the middle of Beşiktaş, surrounded by linden trees that scent the air in June, Ihlamur Pavilion is one of Istanbul's best-kept secrets. Two baroque stone buildings, a garden of near-silence, and almost no tourists — even in the height of summer.

At the northern edge of Istanbul's European side, deep in a forested valley on the old imperial road to the Black Sea, Maslak Pavilion is the city's most remote and least visited imperial estate. Four original buildings in old-growth forest — for travellers who want to find what the guidebooks missed.

Most Ottoman palaces were built for sultans. This one was built by a sultan's daughter — a published poet, a philanthropist, and one of the most remarkable women in late Ottoman history. Her palace sits on the Asian Bosphorus shore at Kandilli with one of the widest views on the strait.