I’m planning a trip to Turkey in the fall. The June 2021 Lonely Planet guidebook to Istanbul shows a price for the Topkapi palace of 40 Turkish Lira, or about $5 at that time. What I can find online now from what seem to be third-party vendors ( I can’t find an official site that lists the price) is 59 euros, or about $65. Can the price have increased by that much in 3 years?
Have you been to Turkey recently? What is the actual current price to visit Topkapi?
I was in Istanbul this past April, and included a stop at Topkapı Palace. Admission was 1500 Turkish lira, as I recall, which at the time converted to around 45 euros, but if we bought the tickets directly from the museum site ahead of time in euros, we were charged 50. If you buy from some rando tourist outfit, you’ll pay a premium on top of that.
It’s definitely a pricey ticket, but you get a lot for it. The grounds are extensive with many exhibits. We spent three hours and didn’t see everything. By contrast, we were in and out of Hagia Sophia in less than an hour.
We were in Istanbul five days and saw a lot. Happy to provide other suggestions or comments.
That said, the Hagia Sophia is one of the most amazing buildings in the world, and should not be missed.
Oh yes, no question. A must-see historical moment.
Even though we spent longer standing in line outside than we spent actually touring after entry, it was still absolutely worth it.
This was supposed to be “historical monument.”
I’ve been to Istanbul twice, last in October 2023. A ticket for the Topkapi Serail, combined with the Harem and the Hagia Irene church (which is not in a good condition at all) from the official booths, should run about 1500 lira, which is also the price they post on their website. It’s definitely worth it.
The steep increase noted by the OP is, I think, an instance of differential pricing, whereby local residents pay a much lower rate than foreign tourists. You get that in a lot of destinations. IIRC Turkish nationals could get tickets at a lower price (don’t remember the figure, and they don’t put it on the English website), which may be much closer to the price tag stated in that guidebook.
I have a photo of the dagger from the movie Topkapi so the visit was interesting. But that was 10+ years ago, and IIRC there’s been a decent amount of inflation since then. The guidebook in the museum shop was a bargain at the time back then.
Also interesting was the Chora church, although I saw in the news they were converting it into a mosque. I assume this simply means they hold services there, not that they’re doing anything to the amazing Byzantine Christian mosaics.
Plenty of other sites to see.
They charged you for a visa at airport customs on arrival, depending on what your country does to them. (For Canada, it was 60USD at the time because that was the fee we charge for a Turkish visitor to get a visa). Like many countries in the area, USD, cash. (I don’t know if Euros work too).
We stayed in Kusadasi last year, and you could pay with Euros in a lot of places, though I imagine the exchange rate isn’t great. Traders didn’t much like credit cards though.
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What did they to to turn the Hagia Sofiya into a mosque? Do they cover the mosaics at certain times? Do visitors have to remove their shoes? Did they put rugs down over the marble floors?
Since I was there in April, I can address this.
Yes, there are rugs on the floor of the Hagia Sophia, as required in a mosque. And, yes, the most overtly Christian of the mosaics in the central area are covered, as they would be inappropriate for a Muslim house of worship. However, they are not permanently covered, as in, plastered over. There are large hanging calligraphic displays blocking the worshipers’ view of the mosaics, but the artworks are still there. If you can get yourself in the right place in the galleries, you can just peer around the edges and see glimpses.
To illustrate, note the dark circle at lower right. That’s suspended on cables, and is about a meter in front of the wall, hiding the mosaics behind.
However, observe the painted ceiling has not been covered in any way; the Byzantine-era representations of angels and such are still exposed (see the totemic-looking figures just below the main dome). There would be no representational art like this in a proper mosque, but evidently there was extensive discussion and it was decided that these would be acceptable.
In addition, the surviving mosaics in the upstairs galleries have not been covered at all. This, again, was apparently deemed acceptable, because they’re not visible from the central area of worship.
Also, it’s noteworthy that the building itself is oriented on the compass as a Christian church, and doesn’t properly face Mecca like a mosque should. To compensate, a mihrab has been added — this is the niche or altar which indicates the direction to Mecca. In a purpose-built mosque, this would be in the center of the front interior wall. Here, though, it’s visibly off-center with respect to the building, placed so the worshipers can kneel and pray in the correct direction.
It’s an astonishing building. I strongly recommend visitors spend time reading about it and familiarizing themselves with the details so they know what they’re looking at before they go, in order to get the most out of it. It’s impressive no matter what, but it’s doubly impressive when you understand the incredible history and evolution of the place, and in some ways genuinely inspiring to recognize how Islam and Christianity manage to co-exist within its walls.
I forgot to address this.
As a visitor to the Hagia Sophia, you don’t have to remove your shoes, because you’re not allowed on the main floor. Only Muslims who are coming for prayer are allowed on the floor: no tourists permitted. Visitors are funneled through a different entrance, going upstairs to the surrounding galleries, which is where they’re restricted for their tour. It’s fine, you can see everything from up there, and you can keep your shoes on.
By contrast, if you visit any other mosque, like the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (aka the “Blue Mosque”), you are allowed to be on the floor, and you do have to take your shoes off. (And you should visit at least the Blue Mosque, because it is, indeed, spectacular.) It’s just the Hagia Sophia that’s an exception.
Seems they must have changed this recently. When I visited Istanbul in October last year (which was after the reversion from secular museum to mosque), visitors were allowed on the main floor of the Hagia Sophia (which was carpeted) and had to remove their shoes.
Yes, this is new as of February 2024.
The basic idea is, they can’t charge admission for entry into a mosque. It’s a place of worship and entrance should be free. However, it’s an exceptionally popular monument, and if it’s free, they’ll have hordes of people, shoulder to shoulder. Even aside from the fact that this would be disruptive to the function of the mosque, it’s an ancient building and can’t withstand such intensive use.
So they solved the problem by creating a conceptual division in function. The upstairs galleries are now considered a museum, with an entrance ticket and a timed window for visitation. They’ve deliberately set a fairly high ticket price (25 euros when I went) to discourage casual tourism and try to manage the crowds.
The main floor is the worship area; there’s no price for entry, but you must be entering solely for the purpose of prayer. There were signs that it was for Turkish citizens only, but I don’t know how strictly they enforce that. Regardless, I assume if you claim to be one of the faithful and then start snapping photos, they’ll eject you quickly, but I didn’t see that happen. People seemed generally respectful.
Edit to add: Forgot to mention, they also close entrance to the visitors’ galleries during the most popular prayer periods (e.g. Friday afternoons) because they feel it would be distasteful for tourists to be taking pictures of all the people gathering to pray. It’s a place of worship, after all. It’s not a zoo and the faithful are not to be gawked at.
Many major European cathedrals operate on the same principle: Admission fee for tourists, but free to enter for service or prayer. Plus they have guards walking around to give you a warning (or throw you out, in case you persist) if you claim to enter as a worshipper but then engage in obviously touristy behaviour (taking photos, walking around looking at things, etc.).
The cathedral in Aachen has an interesting variation on this: Admission is free for everyone, but if you want to take pictures, you have to pay a fee (and they give you a little badge so the patrolling guard knows whether or not to yell at you). It’s a truly beautiful place, as befits the resting place of Charlemagne, well worth a visit. The town center is cute too.
To be fair, those big Arab calligraphic discs were hanging there in 2013 also, before it was returned to serving as a mosque. As were the low-hanging circular chandiliers typical of mosques. But then, the entrance fee was for the whole building (upper gallery also open, note the horse-friendly circular staircase/walkway to the upper-gallery.) And the lineup to get in that day was huge, we waited about 45 minutes. So crowd control is obviously necessary. IIRC there was no line-up at the time for the Topkai museum and palace grounds.
We also arrived at the Blue Mosque during prayer times. We were kept out of the foyer(?), stayed in the garden until prayer was over, then allowed into that area, but the main floor of the mosque was roped off at the (large, wide) doorways with those velvet crowd control ropes.
The Cologne Cathedral also needs no admission, you can freely walk in almost anytime, except when a service is going on. I don’t know if taking photos is allowed though, it’s been a while since I last visited. And crowd control usually is no concern because the cathedral is so large that it can take all the tourists that want to visit anytime.
This is something that I noticed when travelling: It seems that Catholics are more likely to keep admission to their churches free (even for tourists) than other denominations. I’ve rarely had to pay for a Catholic church or cathedral (even top-notch destinations, like St Peter’s in Rome; I think Notre Dame in Paris charges admission). Happened to me much more often with Protestant denominations. Anglicans, in particular, charge hefty rates.
France is kind of a special case, due to the state’s unusual relationship with religious institutions. Notre Dame and such might be “church buildings,” but in a broad sense they’re owned by the state and are therefore managed differently than is done elsewhere.
We’re getting pretty far afield of the original topic, which (I belatedly realize) was asked in FQ. @jebert, are there any other Istanbul-related topics you’d like help with, to pull this back to your OP?
A block or so from the Haija is an underground cistern from Byzantine era. Built including parts of old temples repurposed as columns. Something different.