Buildings at the Harem of Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul
The Dolmabahce Palace is Türkiye’s answer to the great European palaces famous the world over. Sultan Abdulmecid I got sick of staying at the relatively modest Topkapi palace and set out construction of a newer and bigger palace which became Dolmabahce Palace. True enough, the Dolmabahce Palace is much larger than its predecessor and arguably occupies a better location along the Bosphorus Strait, the defining waterway of Istanbul and even Türkiye as a whole. I got a ticket with another group to enter the palace. What I didn’t realize that visiting the Dolmabahce Palace is a little different from the other places that I have been to, even here in Istanbul.
House at the Harem of the Dolmabahce Palace
One thing visitors need to understand is that the management is determined to protect and preserve the Dolmabahce Palace. This not only includes the normal stuff you expect to be protected like the artifacts but also includes the carpet. Before entering the palace itself, people would need to protect the carpet from visitors. In the mosques that I have visited here, visitors will need to take their shoes off before entering. Visitors can park their shoes at designated places before wearing them again once you exit the place.
Outside the National Painting Museum at the Dolmabahce Palace
The Dolmabache Palace is no different, however instead of asking you to remove your shoes, there are machines which dispense plastic shoe covers. They are like short, loose plastic socks. They come in pairs and you need to open them and just slip your foot, shoe and all inside the plastic. That way, you don’t need to remove your shoes when moving around the Dolmabache Palace and not have to ruin the carpet of the palace interior. While this can be annoying, I totally understand the reason why they require visitors to do this. The one thing which I don’t appreciate is that upon exit of the palace building, visitors would need to discard their plastic socks. This inevitably leads to a lot of plastic waste. While I don’t have any suggestions on how to fix this issue, I know that this is not something good and that it should not be associated with a well known place such as the sultan’s palace.
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