The Room of the Pasha’s Daughter
Lit Up — June’s Prompt: Stranger Things
To celebrate our first wedding anniversary, my husband and I decided to stay at the seafront mansion we had our wedding, which had a beautiful view of the Bosphorus of Istanbul. The mansion once belonged to an Ottoman Pasha, who lived there with his family for years. Now, renovated and turned into a highly luxurious hotel, it had become a very romantic wedding venue and a place to get away from Istanbul’s bustle.
Formerly serving as the Pasha’s bedroom, the main room in which we stayed on our wedding night was unavailable on our anniversary. Therefore, we had to check in to the room next door. Seeing the disappointed looks on our faces, the hotel manager, whom we came to know well during our wedding preparations, apologized for the inconvenience and said, though it only had a partial view of the sea, the room he gave us was also nice, and it used to belong to the Pasha’s daughter. Knowing the manager had always been eager to share the history of the mansion with the guests, we said our thanks and went up to our room before he could go on.
That evening we ate a romantic candlelit dinner at the hotel’s restaurant, formerly a boathouse. The floor was made of glass, so we could see the sea under our feet. Jazz music oozed from the speakers sotto voce while we ate our desserts…
