Prole's Travels: Topkapi palace

The palace has been home to the Sultans since somewhere around the 13th century and is now a museum. There is marble and coloured tiles everywhere. The treasury was fantastic. The religious artifacts were interesting. Sadly photographs are not allowed in either area.
The treasury holds gold and jewels like you've never seen including diamonds of 20, 60 and one monster over 80 carats. Also the Topkapi dagger and several of the Sultans swords are on display as well as the usual palace clutter of thrones and useless but expensive bowls and jugs etc.
The Sultans clothing was interesting but mostly looked like huge dresses. Once again no photos so I can't show you what I mean.
The religious artifact rooms were blessed by live singing of the Koran while you are walking around. They had things like a stick that belonged Moses, swords from prophets about 3000 years old, the old gold plated guttering from the building in mecca as well as the old door and several locks. The most interesting things were several jars that held bits of the prophet Mohammed's beard and apparently one had one of his teeth that got broken in battle, they even had a footprint complete with gold case.
It seems that every Sultan had added to or changed the palace in some way so you can see signs of where columns used to be and where railings have been removed. Several battles won seems to be commemorated with a new building, that being said it looks and feels like one palace all flowing together.
We didn't visit the harem rooms as you had to pay extra. It was 20 lira for palace entry an an additional 15 lira for the harem, that makes it quite expensive.

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