Beykoz Mecidiye Pavilion

Beykoz Mecidiye Pavilion stands at Hünkâr İskelesi in Beykoz, on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus. Mehmed Ali Pasha, the governor of Egypt, began building it for Sultan Abdülmecid in 1845; after his death his son Said Pasha completed it in 1854 and presented it to the sultan. The National Palaces Administration describes it as earlier than both Dolmabahçe and Beylerbeyi, and as the first masonry building in the new style on the Bosphorus.

It is a two-storey, symmetrical building with a neoclassical front, faced with stone imported from Italy and local white marble.

The interior is one modest building, but the history around it carries a whole talk. Because it recalled the Egyptian Question, the long crisis with this same governor that had cost the Ottoman state dearly, Abdülmecid seems to have taken little notice of the gift, according to the Administration. Abdülaziz used it in summer, held wrestling matches on the Beykoz meadow below and, on 15 October 1869, gave one of his banquets here for Empress Eugénie of France, the same visit that took her to Beylerbeyi.

Then the building left royal use. It became an orphanage, a hospital for trachoma patients in the 1920s, a preventorium in 1953 and a children's chest disease hospital from 1963. It passed to the National Palaces on 23 December 1997 and opened as a museum on 11 April 2017, after restoration between 2010 and 2016.

Tell this outside. Indoors the rules restrict narration, and the building is too small to hold a group while you talk.

The pavilion sits at the highest point of a park laid out in terraces rising from the shore. Where the group is set down decides whether the first part of the visit is a climb, so find out in advance which gate your coach can use. The official address is Gazi Yunus Sokak, Yalıköy.

The Administration lists a separate garden ticket alongside the pavilion ticket, and names the Beykoz Mecidiye Pavilion recreation area (mesire alanı) as a place where MüzeKart is not accepted. Decide before you arrive whether your group is visiting the pavilion, the grounds, or both.

Beykoz Mecidiye Pavilion is run by the National Palaces Administration, and its visiting rules make a headset system mandatory once a group with a licensed guide is larger than eight people. The same rules say guides may not narrate loudly indoors without one, and a visitor who ignores the rules can be asked to leave by the staff. This is a written rule, not a courtesy, and it is the same rule as at Topkapı: see the Topkapı headset rule page.

The rules do not name a type of system. If you plan to use anything other than the familiar rented sets, a phone-based system like ours included, confirm with the palace administration that it is accepted before the day.

Beykoz is the northernmost of the three National Palaces sites on the Asian shore. Küçüksu Pavilion is about 6.8 km to the south and Beylerbeyi Palace about 11 km, both in a straight line, so each transfer is a coach or boat leg. Doing them north to south ends the day nearest the first bridge and the European side.

The nearest ferry pier, Beykoz, is about 800 m from the pavilion in a straight line. Whether a scheduled boat suits your timing is a question for the operator's timetable, not for this page.