Topkapi

Part of the Divan, where the imperial council met, sometimes covertly watched by the sultan This may be part of the Throne Room Detail of fountain Reflected Column Locked Elaine Lion Gilded lookout Spirals Computer screen provides hint of modernity A bench of Americans, I think resting Carriage

Didn’t see the Executioner’s Fountain, but there were many places in Topkapi Palace this afternoon and evening where you got a profoundly uneasy sense of stress, politicking and human tragedies that played out during the 470-year rule of the Ottoman sultans. I found the Harem particularly suffocating in that sense, but the treasures – architectural or in the form of manuscripts, ceramics and stained glass, tiling, fountains, inlays, jewels, weapons and clocks – were sometimes quite literally breath-taking. It being a public holiday, the place was buzzing, but Elaine and I found we could escape the worst of the press by walking around counter-clockwise.