Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
done in the first half of the sixteenth century by Piri Reis, the great
Ottoman admiral, explorer and cartographer. Within the museum
there are exhibits from all periods of Turkish naval history, ranging in
date from the Ottoman period up to the present century. A separate
building houses the museum's incomparable collection of pazar
caiques, the beautiful rowing barges that were used by the sultans to
travel to their seaside palaces and pavilions along the Bosphorus and
Golden Horn.
ÇIRAĞAN PALACE
About 500 metres beyond Beşiktaş the ferry passes the Çırağan Palace
Hotel, also known as the Kempinsky. The hotel, which was completed
in 1987, is built on the site of Çırağan Sarayı, and its seaside section
preserves the original façade of the palace. Çırağan Sarayı was built
during the reign of Abdül Aziz and was completed in 1872; the
sultan died there on 4 June 1876, five days after he had been deposed.
His death was officially declared to be a suicide, but the suspicious
circumstances suggested to many of his contemporaries that he had
been murdered. His nephew and successor, Murat V, was so mentally
disturbed at the time of his accession that he proved unable to rule
and was soon after deposed in favour of his brother Abdül Hamit
II, who chose to live in Yıldız Sarayı rather than in Dolmabahçe or
Çırağan. After the adoption of the Constitution of 1908, Çırağan was
restored and used for a time to house the second Turkish Parliament.
Then in January 1910 the palace was destroyed by fire, leaving only
the blackened façade on the Bosphorus, which was restored when it
was built into the new hotel.
YILDIZ PALACE AND PARK
A short way beyond the Çırağan Palace Hotel we come to the
entrance of Yıldız Park and the grounds of Yıldız Sarayı. Just beside
the entrance to the park stands Mecidiye Camii, built by Sultan
Abdül Mecit in 1848; it has a very quaint, but ugly, minaret, in a
pseudo-Gothic style. At the north-eastern corner of the gardens, just
outside the upper entrance to the park, is Hamidiye Camii, built in
1886 by Sultan Abdül Hamit II.
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