İstanbul's other palaces: Yıldız, Ihlamur, Aynalıkavak and Maslak

The complex at Yıldız began life during the reign of Selim III (r. 1789-1807) when the sultan had a park laid out here for his mother, Mihrişah Sultan. However, it didn't really come into its own until the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II (1876-1909). In 1878 an attack on the waterside Çırağan Sarayı highlighted a potential weakness in security at the nearby Dolmabahçe Sarayı, causing the nervous Abdülhamid to opt for retreating inland to what he saw as the greater protection of Yıldız.

Once moved, Abdülhamid occupied the State Apartments built by Selim III, which are not currently open to the public. Instead, you can visit the Yıldız Şale (chalet), a completely separate guesthouse dating back to the 1870s. When Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany paid a visit to İstanbul in 1889, the sultan had the small existing guesthouse expanded especially to accommodate him. Expanded again in 1898 when the Kaiser visited for the second time, it ended up as a suite of 60 rooms lurking behind a deceptively simple façade, rather fancifully described as resembling a Swiss chalet. What is more surprising about the building is that it somehow manages to look cohesive despite having been built in three different stages and under the supervision of architects with such different visions as the baroque supremo Sarkis Balyan and the Art Nouveau genius Raimondo d'Aronco.

Unfortunately, Yıldız is not a particularly visitor-friendly site. Unlike Dolmabahçe but like the much-older Topkapı, the palace consists of a collection of buildings, in this case separated from each other by a wall through which visitors cannot pass. On one side of the wall, you'll find the State Apartments rubbing shoulders with the Yıldız Sarayı Müzesi (Yıldız Palace Museum) and the Şehir Müzesi (City Museum), which between them house a fine collection of paintings, Art Nouveau bric-a-brac and wooden furniture made by Sultan Abdülhamid, an enthusiastic carpenter in his spare time; on the other side of the wall, the şale presides over a landscaped garden at the top of Yıldız Parkı, which is also home to the Çadır and Malta Köşks. These lovely pavilions now serve as small café-restaurants, and the Malta in particular is a delight, with the small marble pool on the ground floor looking much like the larger model that graces the interior of Beylerbeyi Sarayı. Also inside the park is the Imperial Porcelain Factory, where from 1896, replicas of Sèvres porcelain were turned out for the palace to reduce the expense of importing the real thing.

Yıldız came to an unhappy end in 1909 when Abdülhamid was deposed and the palace ransacked. For the rest of the 20th century, its future looked uncertain. For some years, the şale served as a casino, but eventually most of the buildings were abandoned. Then in the 1980s, they were restored by Çelik Gülersoy's Touring and Automobile Club of Turkey before being returned to the state and opened to the public. Even today, though, there are many İstanbul residents who have never visited Yıldız, although the coming of the big new Dahill restaurant (Tel.: 0 [212] 227 49 28) behind the factory may help to publicize it. Weekend brunches here come coupled with breathtaking Bosporus views, and afterwards you can walk off the calories with a stroll in the palace grounds.

The importance of the shipyards on the Golden Horn meant that there was a need for somewhere close at hand where the sultans could stay while visiting them. The answer lay in the early 17th century Tersane Sarayı (Shipyard Palace), originally built for Sultan Ahmed I, who liked to practice his archery in the Okmeydanı on nearby Hasköy Hill. Today all that survives of the waterside palace is the Aynalıkavak Kasrı (Pavilion of the Mirrored Poplars), a pavilion added to the site by Sultan Ahmed III, who wanted a pied à terre within easy reach of the Kağıthane and Alibey streams (then the pleasure grounds known as the Sweet Waters of Europe), where he could throw his famous tulip-peeping parties. In 1730 the palace lost its raison d'être with the overthrow of the sultan and his powerful grand vizier, although it received a new lease of life in the late 18th century when the music-loving Sultan Selim III had it restored as a venue for private concerts. It was restored again during the reign of Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808-39). In theory, it's once again under restoration, although the signs stating that fact have now been in place for so long that they're growing rusty with age. For the time being, you'll have to content yourself with inspecting the tiles at the base of the Eyüp funicular, which depict the pavilion in its heyday, with the sultan watching acrobatics taking place on the Golden Horn right in front of it.

One final set of imperial pavilions can be found just a short drive out of Maslak on the road to Sarıyer. Built by Sultan Abdülaziz as a gift for his son Abdülhamid, they too are currently closed for restoration. Here, however, you can at least stroll around the grounds, which make an astonishingly serene and inviting oasis just a hop and a skip away from Maslak's full-on business buzz. Hopefully, the Hümayun Kasrı (Imperial Pavilion) will eventually reopen to the public since it contains stair-rails and mirror frames made by Sultan Abdülhamid himself.

Like Beylerbeyi Sarayı and Küçüksu Kasrı, all the above palaces and pavilions are closed on Mondays and Thursdays. Both Yıldız Şale and Ihlamur Kasrı must be visited on guided tours, usually only available in Turkish.