Important: No audio guide without Identification (i.e. passport). The guide gave an overview of the history of the Palace and then we proceeded inside with an audio guide. The Palace is a ‘must see’ place with lavish furnishings and, especially of interest, is the exhibition of magnificent `gifts given to the occupying Sultans. We really enjoyed doing our visit at our own pace which took just over three hours.

We absolutely loved our guide Dennis, who knew many interesting facts about the history of the palace and the last sultants who lived there. The guided tour was definitely necessary to understand more about why the palace was build and what the idea behind it was. Thank you Dennis!

The palace is worth seeing if you have extra time in Instanbul. It is very ornate and no expense was spared. And it cost the Turkish govt a massive fortune because the Ottoman Sultans went into great debt to build it. The logistics of the tour worked fine. Although we could have figured it out ourselves and rented to audio guide through the ticket office, it was nice to have a guide handle that for us and the 15 minute lecture was good. We gave the ticket office our driver’s license use the audio guide. They gave us a claim chreck for it and returned the licenses when we finished the tour.