Istanbul

On the terrace of the Konyali restaurant in the fourth courtyard of the Topkapi Palace there is a scent of warm cedar trees. Below, cargo vessels heading for the Black Sea plough through the opaque blue surface of the Bosphorous, between commuter ferries and turquoise fishing cobbles laden with bass and anchovies; swifts jet across a sky the colour of a blackbird's eggs, the islands in the Sea of Marmara wobble gently in the morning haze. It's a fine place to sip pomegranate sherbet, nibble fig baklava and ponder the pyjamas of Sultan Abdul Hamit II.

The last but two Ottoman ruler of Turkey, Abdul Hamit II did not live in the Topkapi Sarayi. In 1856 Abdul Mecit I abandoned the place in favour of the newly built Dolmabahce Palace, a vast block of sand-coloured masonry covered with carved friezes - Buckingham Palace with an oriental twist - on the north side of the Golden Horn. (A few miles beyond it, toward the Black Sea, are the huge mansions of the new rulers. Concrete, with greenish lead roofs; domes replace by the tilted cups of massive satellite dishes). Nevertheless Abdul Hamit's pyjamas are on display here, nearby in the Hall of the Campaign Pages (past the Quarters of the Halberdiers with Tresses, through the Gate of Felicity, turn right before the Library of Ahmet III). The 19th Century despot's night attire is admittedly not as spectacular as the daywear of one of his 16th Century forbearers Selim I who, perhaps in a bid to shake off his moniker "The Grim", decked himself in a kaftan of raspberry-pink silk decorated with trios of large, yellow polka dots, yet something about their steadfast commitment to luxury sticks in the memory. The jacket of Abdul Hamit's pyjamas is double-breasted, the trousers button at the ankles, and both are made of eau-de-nil moiré, lined with finest cashmere.

Abdul Hamit's pyjamas - refined, smooth, soft and opulent - are, you suspect representative of the sort of life the Ottoman rulers had in mind for themselves. After capturing the Byzantine capital of Constantinople in 1453 (The city walls which held them at bay for half a century are still around. They appear before you as you drive in from the airport, the besieging army of Mehmet the Conqueror, replaced by a horde of brightly coloured billboards and a children's play area) the Sultans created a city of ornate, decorative splendour, of light and shade, clamour and calm that would, in the following centuries, settle in the imaginations even of those who had never seen as the very quintessence of the East. As a consequence to visit Seraglio Point, Sultanahmet and the Bazaar Quarter is to return to a childhood dream of the Middle East. It is the Arabia of Victorian illustrators, Baghdad as envisioned by 1930s Hollywood moguls.

Selim The Grim of the fabulous kaftan concentrated his energies on war and assassinating his immediate male relatives (Fratricide was to remain the hobby of the Ottoman rulers until Mustafa Kemal Ataturk sent them packing in 1922.) The second Selim devoted himself to wine, women and collecting jewellery. He was nicknamed, no one suspects affectionately, "The Sot".

A portrait of Selim shows a man with heavy jowls and owlish eyes. His huge turban towers above him, a froth of creamy foulard, the brown centre-piece popping out from the top like the chocolate flake in a "99" ice cream. It was Selim The Sot who filled the treasury of the Topkapi Palace.

There was a fashion in the 1960s for covering objects with plaster and then sticking seashells onto them. In such a way the humble bottle of Mouton Cadet could be transformed into an attractive table lamp. Selim II seems to have been the victim of a similar craze only in his case jewels and precious metal replaced polyfilla and limpets. Everything in The Treasury is glistening and encrusted. The throne is inlaid with mother-of-pearl and studded with jade and lapis lazuli; bow cases, mirrors, daggers, cups, pendants, cribs and rosewater sprinklers are pebble-dashed with beryl and topaz, rubies and rock crystal, ivory and onyx, pink tourmalines and emeralds the size of golf balls. Even the skull of John the Baptist is edged with gold and sparkling gems.

The Topkapi Harem is even more extra-ordinary, though, perhaps surprisingly given its associations, a good deal less vulgar. Tiles patterned with lavender, kingfisher blue and mallard green outlined in black, geometric borders enclosing interwoven tulips, roses and carnations, stretch from the skirting boards to the apex of the domed ceilings; the chimney-pieces are burnished brass and shaped like the helmets of some gigantic Asiatic warrior sect; indigo rugs swirling with sinuous designs of cerise and cream cover the floors; silk divans in scarlet and gold line the walls. Someone asks the guide how much it all cost. A cheerful, squinting man he cannot venture a sum, but, as the Australian standing behind me remarks to his wife, the bill for the grout alone must have run into millions.

We stand in a cobbled passageway opposite the entrance to the Imperial Hall. "Here," the guide says, "The eunuchs would leave the food for the royal banquets to be collected by the concubines".

The food came across a large, tree-lined courtyard from the cavernous imperial kitchens. The kitchens have twenty chimneys, each one of them the size of that of an industrial limekiln. Once so many cooks and kitchen boys were employed here they had their own mosque. A whole battalion of them devoted themselves solely to the production of halva. The dishes created were as elaborate as anything Careme or Escoffier would later dream up for the crowned heads of Europe. At the circumcision feast of the sons of Suleyman the Magnificent the guests ate grey shrimps with garlic and spring onions in vinegar and olive oil, lamb stewed with dried figs, red grapes, honey and shallots and peaches poached in rosewater. A whole roast ox was served. When it was cut open live birds flew out from the ribcage.

Such public events were staged not in the royal palaces but in the ruins of the Roman hippodrome. The hippodrome once stood between the Blue Mosque and what is now the Museum of Islamic Arts (worth visiting for the exhibition on Turkish nomads which shows how the fabrics worn by herders of Bactrian camels inadvertently influenced genteel hoteliers from Broadstairs to Torquay by becoming the basis for the Regency stripe).

Nowadays all that remains of the hippodrome are the central obelisks. Once chariots raced round them. Now it is left to the yellow taxis. The drivers are worthy successors to Ben Hur. During one journey, as we whizzed along through the weaving traffic of a dual carriageway I watched the driver punching numbers into his mobile phone with one hand while changing gear with the other. Fortunately he managed to get his hands back on the steering wheel just in time to avoid colliding with a dark, hooded figure that had wandered out into the road in front of us brandishing a scythe.

"On the death of the Sultan", the guide in the Topkapi harem tells us, "all the inhabitants of the harem were moved out to a palace where Istanbul University now stands. All that is except the eunuchs. The eunuchs were sent back to their homes in Egypt and the Sudan". He clearly thinks this shows a humanitarian side of the Ottoman regime. Personally I am not so sure. There are, to paraphrase the splendid Smokey Robinson, some sad things known to man, but there can't be too much sadder than the sight of an unemployed eunuch.

In The Courtyard of the Concubines the guide points over the edge of a marble balcony. "Here, below us is the outdoor swimming pool for the women of the harem". We peer over the edge. 150 years too late. The concubines have gone. So has the water. To the west along the Golden Horn crouches the muscular bulk of the Suleymaniye mosque and before it the warren of narrow lanes around the Great Bazaar and the Egyptian Market.

In these uneven, sloping streets vendors are shouting the odds about their wares: opulent cherries, bulging grapes, batteries, belly-dancer outfits, watermelons, condoms, bootleg DVDs, lawnmowers, rifles and brassieres so big and rigid they could double as semi-detached yurts for an extended family of nomads.

Itinerant food sellers are roasting corn on the cob, selling simit bread rings, ayran (a yoghurt drink), freshly squeezed orange juice, macaroons and proffering scalding hot tea in small tulip shaped glasses that conduct the heat so efficiently you need don a welding mitt to pick them up. Gangs of feral cats, smoke grey, saucer-eyed, bat-eared and with thin bodies like a bag of stair-rods haunt the alleyways.

In the Spice Bazaar vibrant yellow turmeric, fiery red paprika and shimmering, chocolatey cinnamon are piled in mounds alongside ginger, saffron and powdered orchid root and big burlap sacks of pistachios, hazels, dried chestnuts, sesame, sunflower and pumpkin seeds. "Hello sir! Please to try our caviar. Genuine Iranian and Russian sturgeon. Beluga and Sevruga. It is an aphrodisiac!" This latter is a popular cry. Everything in Istanbul -baklava, honeycomb, Turkish delight - is touted as an aid to male potency. It is a mystery how it persists when, in the teaming streets outside the Spice Bazaar, there are men with fold out wooden tables laden with boxes of Viagra.

The princes of the bazaar are the carpet salesmen. Buying a carpet is not a spur of the moment thing. The fact that the carpet shops advertise their air-conditioning is proof enough that anyone entering is in for a long haul. The carpet seller talks at the speed of a horserace commentator during the final furlong of the Grand National. "Look at this. Anatolian. Wool-on-wool. Double knot. You married? Feel this. So thick! So soft! You and your wife can make love on it - save breaking the bed".

All through his spiel the carpet seller peppers you with questions: how long have you been in Istanbul? When are you going back? Which hotel are you staying in? How many children do you have? Would a carpet this big fit in the sitting room of your apartment? And what about in the bedroom? How many bedrooms are there? Is it an apartment or a house? His questions seem innocuous, mere idle curiosity, but actually they are a finely tuned system designed to pinpoint with deadly accuracy your exact level of disposable income.

My advice is to tell any carpet salesman that you have eight children, live in a one bedroom flat, have a fortnight of your holiday left to go and are staying in a youth hostel. This will undoubtedly knock more off the price of any goods than many hours of haggling. Though, of course, I only worked this out on the flight home after a buying experience in which I managed to knock close to 60% off the initial asking price of some cushion covers ("Handwoven, vegetable-dyed, antique kilim guaranteed over 80 years old, my friend") and yet still went away feeling as if I had been stripped naked and chased down the street with an electric cattle prod.

I regained some self-respect in the Tiled Kiosk outside the Archaeological Museum. Here there is a china drinking fountain decorated with a painting of a rose tree that sports pink, mauve and white flowers. A golden bee-eater perches in the branches. On a chair across the room an elderly and unimpressed attendant sits cracking pistachio nuts. The discarded shells strike the floor with a pinking sound.

Outside from amongst the shadows of the yew trees comes the throaty moaning of a lovelorn collared dove. From here you can see the rooftops of Beyoglu across the Golden Horn. Once Istanbul's European quarter it is a place of embassies, the terminus for Graham Greene's Stamboul Train, home to the Pera Palace Hotel, which has numbered Agatha Christie, Greta Garbo and Mata Hari amongst its guests. Even nowadays when the main shopping streets such as Istiklal Caddesi are dominated by international brands and the skyline marred the presence of an evil black glass tower that looks like a bottle of some mephitic aftershave aimed at adolescent boys and named "Predator", there remains a whiff of Mittel Europa, a sense of intrigue about the area. The cafes in the candlelit courtyards still seem the kind of place of where Somerset-Maugham's Edwardian master-spy Ashenden might turn up to foil a dastardly plot.

The attendant in the Cagaloglu Baths looks like the sort of man who'd try to garrot him in Chapter six. Five Feet Eight inches tall, he is built along the same lines as the men my grandmother and her friend Milly used to take me to see grapping Brian "Goldbelt" Maxine and Kendo Nagasaki at Middlesbrough Town Hall when I was ten. He looks like Ernest Borgnine's tougher brother.

He leads me from a wooden changing cubicle that has the look of the ticket-office at an Victorian branch line railway station about it, through a laundry room stacked with towels, amongst which an old, stubble-headed chap is grabbing forty winks, and into the baths themselves.

He commands me to lie down on the circular central platform of grey marble and then disappears. Heavy hardwood doors crash behind him. I am alone. Everybody else is out by the fountain watching a football match on the TV. The slab I am lying on is as warm as a barbecue. Up above the domed ceiling has hexagonal and star shaped holes cut in it through which sunlight drizzles. The Cagaloglu Hamam is over 300 years old. Franz Lizt, Kaiser Wilhelm and Tony Curtis have all lain on this slab. Florence Nightingale came here too, though she went into the ladies section next door - a place, which if the publicity material is to be believed, is entirely populated by willowy blondes in La Perla underwear and elaborate make-up.

Water drips. Sweat trickles. Eventually I hear the sound of wooden shoes approaching. The doors bang. The attendant emerges naked now except for plaid towel. He grabs my ankles. He has the grip of a bullmastiff. Every time one of my joints cracks he lets out a grunt as if to say, "I told you so".

After pummelling me for several rounds the attendant leads me over to a marble sink, pours water over me until I think I am going to drown, scrubs me with what appears to be a brillo pad and finally rubs me vigorously with something remarkably like a cotton mop-head.

"You feel good now?" he asks "Like a sultan?" And in truth I do. Everything I had read about the Turkish bath experience lead me to believe that it was the equivalent of sparring with Lennox Lewis and then visiting a chiropractor. That it was nowhere near as bad as that has filled me with euphoria.

Afterwards in the garden of the Yesil Ev hotel I sit beneath a sweet chestnut tree drinking Turkish coffee as rich and silty as the Nile delta and eating sticky pieces of tulumba. The marble-edged flowerbeds are filled with scarlet bizzy-lizzies and hydrangeas in various shades of pink from shy to shocked. The pale brown walls are deluged with wisteria. A faint breeze rustles the delicate leaves of an Acer, the fountain murmurs. If this were the Byzantium of WB Yeats somewhere in the boughs of a lime tree a golden mechanical bird would be singing. Instead I make do with an accordionist playing Delilah.

Unlike Abdul Hamit II we may never get to sleep in silk and cashmere pyjamas, but in Istanbul, every so often, you get the feeling you are coming close to it.