Going on a trip to Istanbul, I dreamed of visiting Topkapi Palace. Many sites with historical information were viewed, tourist reviews about visiting the museum. In order to avoid queues at the box office, the ticket was bought on the website of Istanbul museums. Price 40 LIR Palace himself and 15 lir harem.
Of course, the Palace is striking imagination. However, I regretted that I did not take an audio guide. The territory is just a huge and, having only cards and printouts on the hands of Wikipedia, is very difficult to navigate and fully enjoy the immersion in history. Especially liked the arbors and balconies over the Golden Horn, the ancient planenes, even hollow inside, the church of Holy Irina, the Weapon Museum (there is such an atmosphere that sets up on the fighting spirit).
Harem. It impresses some labyrinth, it does not feel sizes and scale, solid corridors are narrow and confusing. You begin to understand how simply was weave intrigue in such an atmosphere. It is a pity that they are not allowed everywhere, so I wanted to look into every mysterious corner. And of course the rooms of the wives of Sultanov and his children are elegant, vividly, spacious, exquisitely - everything is as they can in the east.
We did not particularly notice the queues - only in the pavilion, where the personal relics of the Prophet Mohammed were exhibited: his letter, tooth, swords, cape and so on. The long line is slowly moving along the showcases, periodically hung up, and in the back background hears the measured reading of the Koran. It is interesting if it were not a huge crowd of the people.
Probably children will still be somewhat tedious, but young and not very families, teams of friends should like.
In the muse, we were in late August, it was warm, but it was raining - we were absolutely wet. Probably, all the same, this weather is most likely rare in August for Istanbul. In general, we really liked it, we recommend this tour to all my friends.