Beylerbeyi

There is Beylerbeyi the palace and Beylerbeyi the village, the first overwhelmingly grand and robust, with a lovely garden, IF ONLY they would allow you to explore it. The latter a rather modest village, the first you come to on the Asian shore after you pass under the First Bosphorus Bridge on your way north. It has a very pretty 18th-century mosque and a delightful little hammam, open alternately for men and women. The unlicensed fish restaurant next to the mosque is supposed to be good. The village also has a rather shi-shi hotel called the Bosphorus Palace, that never quite lived up to its promise, perhaps because it was built in concrete rather than wood after the original house went up in a puff of smoke like a match box one winter’s night in 1982.