Inside Beylerbeyi Palace: Photos & Highlights

Beylerbeyi doesn’t announce itself the way Dolmabahçe does — from the water it’s a long, calm line of white marble under the bridge. Inside is where it wins you over. Here’s what you’ll see, room by room and terrace by terrace; every photo below is a stop on the audio guide included with your ticket (€18.00).

The interior: the pool salon and the chandeliered halls

The heart of the palace is the Havuzlu Salon — a reception hall built around a marble fountain pool whose running water cooled the room through Bosphorus summers. Around it unfold six halls and twenty-odd rooms in a blend of Ottoman plan and French Second Empire finish: Baccarat crystal chandeliers, Hereke palace carpets, Bohemian glass, and ceilings painted with seascapes by court artists. The upstairs reception hall and the sultan’s apartments keep their original furniture — this is one of the best-preserved imperial interiors in Istanbul, and the audio guide walks you through it room by room.

The gardens: magnolia terraces above the strait

Behind the palace the hillside rises in set terraces of magnolias, box hedges and old chestnuts, linked by stairs and a garden tunnel — in April and May the magnolia bloom is the palace’s quiet spectacle. The terraces look down over the palace roofline to the Bosphorus, with the bridge soaring directly overhead: bring time for the view benches. The gardens are part of the palace grounds included in your entry ticket.

The waterfront: two marble bathing pavilions

At either end of the palace’s seawall stand two small marble bathing kiosks — one was reserved for the men of the court, the other for the harem — jewel-box pavilions built right against the water. The waterfront promenade between them, under the palace facade, is the classic Beylerbeyi photo stop and a favourite spot to end the visit.

A short history of Beylerbeyi Palace

The present palace was built in 1861–1865 for Sultan Abdülaziz by the Balyan family of court architects, replacing an earlier wooden summer palace. It served as the court’s summer residence and the empire’s state guesthouse: Empress Eugénie of France stayed here in 1869 en route to opening the Suez Canal (and took the design of its window down to a pavilion at Fontainebleau, the story goes). Deposed sultan Abdülhamid II lived his final years here until his death in 1918. Managed today by the Directorate of National Palaces, the palace is a museum kept remarkably close to its 19th-century state.