Discover how the last Ottoman sultan lived by browsing Dolmabahce Palace and the magnificent museum now housed inside. Dolmabahce means “filled garden,” a reference to the palace being built atop fill dirt that was added to a shallow bay on the European side of the Bosphorus Strait. You will visit the palace’s three main sections: the administrative apartments, the ceremonial hall and the imperial harem. All of them are lavishly decorated, as befitting a 19th-century palace. Portraits created to immortalize the sultans of the Ottoman Empire hang in the National Palaces Painting Museum that now occupies the former crown princes’ residence. In keeping with the palatial theme, lunch follows at the one of the best Turkish Cuisine restaurants. Later, you will cruise this legendary strait that divides Europe to the west from Asia to the east. From the water, you will gain an entirely different perspective of Istanbul.