Night at the 'museum-hotel': The Istanbul gem dripping with history and elegance

By HILARY MACASKILL

High glamour: In 1894 the Pera Palace was the most luxurious hotel in Istanbul, after a revamp it is back to its best


As we arrived in the colonnaded marble hall, a flock of greeters in dove-grey uniforms swooped on us, murmuring 'Welcome to Pera Palace'.

It was a greeting that had been a long time coming - the keenly anticipated but regularly delayed reopening of Turkey's first Western hotel had finally taken place, after a four-year renovation project.

And now, with its spectacular array of contents fully catalogued, the building - first opened in 1892 in the last years of the Ottoman Empire - is restored as a 'museum-hotel'.

A painted sedan chair stands in the hall as a reminder of the early years when guests were transported in this way from Sirkeci station, terminus of the Orient Express: outside is a maroon 1949 Plymouth saloon for modern-day transfers to the airport.

The building was the brainchild of Alexandre Vallaury, a French-Turkish architect who blended neo-classical, Art Nouveau and Oriental styles to produce a hotel that became an elegant hangout for the celebrities of the early 20th Century including Sarah Bernhardt and King Edward VIII, and later Greta Garbo and Alfred Hitchcock.

Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern-day Turkey, stayed here for the first time in 1917: Room 101 is now the Ataturk Museum Room. It is painted in 'sunset pink', his favourite colour, and is full of his possessions.

White marble steps from the foyer lead to the Kubbeli Saloon, a soaring room at the heart of the hotel, with parquet floor, banded columns of Carrara marble and six domes pierced with discs of turquoise glass.

This is the setting for the 'English tea ritual', a traditional speciality here that is accompanied by music on the Schiedmayer grand piano.

Waitresses in trim beige dresses and white aprons emerge from the Patisserie de Pera, adjacent to reception, bearing platters filled with triangles of striped cake, puffs of pastry smothered in chocolate, tiny tarts and rather larger scones.


East meets West: Agatha Christie was one of the many high-profile visitors enchanted by exotic Istanbul in the early 20th century


There is a buzz: this is a popular meeting spot, as is the light-suffused Orient Bar at the corner of the hotel, where Ernest Hemingway knocked back whiskies in a former glamorous age.

But my rendezvous was in the Agatha Christie suite, where I was to meet her grandson, Mathew Prichard. Agatha had stayed in Room 411 as she passed through Istanbul on her visits to excavations in Iraq with her archaeologist husband Max Mallowan.

I'd met Mathew before, when writing my book Agatha Christie At Home, and had been invited to meet him again at the Pera Palace, where he was guest of honour at Agatha's 120th 'birthday' celebrations held by the company that publishes her books in Turkey: Agatha Christie is one of their best selling authors.

Examining the photographs and news cuttings on the walls and a typewriter of similar vintage to one Agatha would have used, Mathew said: 'It's very nice to be in a place that has real associations with her - she really did stay here.' One of the novels on the shelves was, of course, Murder On The Orient Express.

Agatha fulfilled a lifelong dream when she first took this train to Istanbul on her way to Baghdad in 1928. On that visit she stayed in Hotel Tokatlian, which was demolished in the Fifties and was where Hercule Poirot dined before catching the train.

But she also stayed at the Pera Palace and, in deference to her, the restaurant, with its fusion of European-Turkish cuisine under ebullient chef Max Thomae, is named Agatha. For many years the hotel was described as having 'faded grandeur', but there's nothing faded about it now - nearly £20 million was spent on the renovation.

The painstaking task involved 15 stonemasons working for 18 months to chip off the green paint that covered the facade, revealing the mellow stone beneath.


'Museum-hotel': The Pera Palace honours its famous guests from Agatha Christie to Ernest Hemingway


Antique furniture - like the mother-of-pearl inlaid bookcases - was also restored; a spa and a small indoor swimming pool (12 breaststrokes long) added downstairs; and the 'historical elevator' - the oldest in Turkey - returned to working condition.

As this delightful construction of cast-iron and wood panelling - with red velvet bench and mirrors - ascends, it gives a perfect view of the hotel's kubbeli (domes), wrought-iron balconies, and new glass roof which brings sunlight streaming in.

From our room on the sixth floor, we could look across the constant water-borne activity of the Golden Horn - the city's natural harbour - to the mosque-punctuated jumble of the Old City.

Our floor used to be attic quarters for servants, but the rooms have been remodelled and are now larger and rather more luxurious, with heated marble in the bathrooms, gold monogrammed pillows and hand-woven carpets.

In Agatha's day, travellers would have been conveyed across the Golden Horn by the Galata Bridge. There have been many versions since - the current one was built in 1994 - and seeing the bridge is considered one of Istanbul's essential experiences.


Restored: The Pera Palace cost £20m to renovate


It has a lower tier housing a series of restaurants, each vying to provide the most deafening entertainment by song, guitar or piano. We found one with more discreet music and ate fried anchovies while gazing at the New Mosque (actually 400 years old), with its crescent moon fittingly positioned above one slender minaret.

On the bridge's top tier, fishermen crowded together, dangling their lines into the waters. September marks the start of the fishing season here and on one side of the bridge is the market, its baskets of fish continually sluiced with water, while on the other is a crowd of locals who press forward, eager for fish sandwiches - fillets cooked on long grills aboard swaying quayside boats and slapped into half-loaves.

This experience is considered nearly as important as a trip on the Bosphorus past the yali - old wooden (and expensive) summer homes - or a visit to Topkapi Palace, with its plane-shaded courtyards and Sultan's harem rooms.

Another sight that should not be missed is Sirkeci station, close to the walls of Topkapi Palace. A featureless boxy frontage is now the main entrance, but round the corner, past the steam engine on display, is the much grander ticket hall with its fluted classical columns, Moorish curved windows and a stained-glass rose window that would not be out of place in a church.

The Orient Express Restaurant next door has photographs from films and of Agatha at different ages.

Back at the Pera Palace, it was time to dress for dinner. Under a blaze of Murano glass chandeliers in the ballroom, there were speeches from Mathew and from John Curran, whose book, Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks, has been newly translated into Turkish.

As John returned to his table, a man jumped from his seat and, clutching his throat, fell to the ground. It was only as another guest leapt into noisy action that light dawned: this was a murder mystery, and the slim woman in red evening dress, sunglasses and blonde wig was playing a young Miss Marple. I think Agatha might have enjoyed that ...


Travel Facts

The Pera Palace Hotel (www.perapalace.com) offers deluxe rooms from £205 per night, including breakfast. Pegasus Airlines (www.flypgs.com) flies from London Stansted to Istanbul. Prices in October start from £157. Kirker Holidays (020 7593 2283, www.kirkerholidays.com) offers three nights on a bed and breakfast basis at the
Pera Palace from £819 per person. The price includes return flights from London to Istanbul, as well as private transfers and guide notes to the city.


source :dailymail