Beylerbeyi Palace | A Beautiful Royal Palace in Istanbul

There are many historical attractions in Turkey where you can find them almost in every city. One of such places is monuments remain from former royal families and Ottoman Empire. This former Imperial summer home was the venue for a royal slap that once echoed round the world.

This mansion, like many centuries-old palaces, has many interesting and old stories, some of which have been forgotten, but nevertheless, its fame goes far beyond the proximity to the first bridge built on the Bosphorus Strait and the multiplicity of features. Its architecture is stunning. The palace is located on the Asian side of Istanbul, on the shore of the Bosphorus Strait, built in the 1860s by Sarkis Balian, a member of the Balian architectural dynasty that was responsible for other Ottoman architectural masterpieces such as: the Dolmabahçe Palace, the Ortaköy Mosque, and the Cathedral of the Holy Mother of God in Gaziantep.

Beylerbeyi as an Imperial Ottoman summer residence and house for entertaining foreign heads of state, the palace has been called a masterpiece. The palace was built to impress from the water, with its most stunning façade facing the Bosphorus itself. The reception hall has a fountain and a pool inside, and most rooms feature French Baccarat chandeliers. Two marble bathing kiosks (one for the harem and another separate pavillion just for the men of the selamlik), flank the seawall, as a large manicured garden and patch of coppice forest extend from three sides of the building.

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This tension between subtle opulence and insular casualness created an atmosphere ripe for dynamic human interactions as well. In one particularly amazing tale that would seem too good to be true if only it were not recorded in the annals of history, the Empress Eugenie of France paid a visit to the Beylerbeyi while on a tour of the region to mark the grand opening of the Suez Canal. A fleeting error in custom saw the Empress commit a serious faux pas by entering the Palace on the arm of Sultan Abdulaziz. None too pleased the sultan’s mother issued a slap to her face that promptly notified the empress of her error.

These days Beylerbeyi’s strangest feature is a giant sculpture of a cat that seems to prowl the manicured palace grounds. Formed from metal and approximately ten times the size of Istanbul’s real-life, notoriously adorable feral felines the Courtyard Cat throws just enough weird into the Beylerbeyi’s mix of looming regality that a visit to the waterside palace is a surefire win for any number of reasons. 

Here are the distances Beylerbeyi Palace and other important landmarks in Turkey:

• Beylerbeyi Palace - about 13 kilometers
• Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Blue Mosque) - about 5 kilometers
• Dolmabahçe Palace - about 10 kilometers
• Topkapı Palace - about 5.5 kilometers
• Galata Tower - about 7 kilometers
• Hagia Sophia Museum - about 5 kilometers