Wednesday, July 2, 2008

The bird house

Imagine getting this design brief:
Design me a house for resting and guests, two floors, located in gorgeous garden surrounds, overlooking the Bosporus - oh - and make it look like a bird house.

Sarı Köşk was designed in the 1870's by the Ottoman architect Serkiş Balyan with this concept in mind after receiving this 'interesting' request from the owner at the time, General Khedive Ismail.

Painted yellow for the same reason, Sarı Köşk is now open to the public and has a huge buffet style breakfast, including delicious Turkish pastries and amazing looking sheets of honeycomb, with the honey dripping off ready for your toast! It is owned by the Istanbul council which has a policy of making Istanbul's parks and historical buildings open to the public at reasonable prices. Excellent.

Sarı Köşk is in Emirgan Park, a huge park with forest areas, water fountains, playgrounds and masses and masses of flowers.


We had a gorgeous morning there with my sister and her family, filling up on pastries and cherry juice and then walking it off through the cool forest and parkland. I love going to huge parks like this when the weather is hot. All those shady trees, lush grass and the fountains really do make it so much cooler. Sure, you could go to an air-conditioned shopping mall to get out of the heat, but this is so much more fun and leaves you feeling all good inside!

2 comments:

Simple Answer said...

Hi. Found you through Expat blogs (I think!) We are moving to Amman, Jordan in 4 weeks and I'm enjoying reading about your expat experience. Great photos. Istanbul is one of the places we'd like to visit while we're in the hood!

Anonymous said...

Gorgeous photo of your little boy. I really enjoyed reading your articles and I will be in Turkey late July and look forward so much to visiting places you have written about. You are quite an inspiration. Well done.