Post-Lockdown, Istanbul's Residents Are Embracing Empty Palaces and Sunset Dance Parties

"The day I arrived at the towering rococo gates of Dolmabahçe Palace, the largest palace in Turkey, an employee donning a mask and face shield approached me and said: 'Today the palace is yours.' And he wasn’t kidding—I was the only visitor. Dolmabahçe Palace is one of Istanbul’s most popular sites, usually receiving thousands of visitors per day, with notoriously long queues. It was nearly impossible to believe that I had the 285-room Ottoman palace to myself. The dizzying Iznik tiles, the world’s largest Bohemian crystal chandelier, the Egyptian onyx marble hammam—even the grandiose circumcision room—was all mine to contemplate and admire in splendid solitude. No selfie sticks, no pushy crowds, not even a chatty guide. I was drawn to details I otherwise would have missed—the seductive saffron shade of the curtains, the pregnant silence in the room that Ataturk passed away in."