HAREM continued...

THE TWIN PAVILLIONS ( PRINCESS'S APARTMENTS )

Princes' Apartments consist of two rooms opening one into another, with a few steps leading up to them. The first room is very nearly square while the second is rectangular. The first room is entered through a doorway at marble with carved inscriptions on both the outside and the inside. It is roofed by a wooden dome. The walls are completely covered with tiles. On the right of the entrance there is a fairly large fireplace. On two of the walls, there are two rows of windows opening into the Courtyard of the Favorites. The windows in the upper row are of stained glass with 17th century decoration. The inside of the dome is decorated with painted motifs in gilt and various colors. The walls are faced with large tile panels with vases of flowers, cypresses, arabesques and flowers.

The intervals between the windows contain blue and white tile inscriptions. Both rooms have poems in praise of Mehmed IV carved in the marble niches of the windows.

The second room is rectangular. It has a flat ceiling with painted decoration. The intervals between the windows contain blue and white tile inscriptions of a religious nature. Excavations have revealed the original, lower floor. Thus the 16th century tiles on the lower parts of the walls are exposed. This shows that before the fire in the reign of Mehmed IV, the whole surface of the walls had been covered with 16th century tiles.

THE GOLDEN WAY

On leaving the Princes' Apartments, one passes on the left the Courtyard of the Favorites. At the top of the wooden stairway leading to the upper floor of the Apartments of the Favorites, one can see three tile panels in iron frames. Beyond those panels lies the pavilion of the Holy Relics. It was through here that the Sultan enters these chambers on Fridays and Holy Days. The apartments of the Favorites were later constructed over this section of the Golden Way.

The Golden Way is entered opposite the section containing these tile panels. It consists of a narrow high–ceiling passage with the colonnade of the Valide Sultan on the right and the Endurun ( third ) Courtyard on the left.

At the end of the Golden Way is the main gate with guard rooms behind it. Beyond the main gate, on the left hand side, lies the Kuhane ( Aviary ) Gate. It gives access to the Third Courtyard. It is here that our tour of the Harem ends.