Noon on Sunday saw the departure of my new Dutch friends. As I didn't have my camera out the previous night, I am counting on Hylke to deliver our group picture to me via email. This is a pretty safe bet, as he is a big camera nut, and was the one who gathered us together for picture in the first place.
This is when they sprung the good news on me that they would come into Amsterdam to meet me Tuesday night, so it wasn't too bad a goodbye for now.
Upon their departure, I headed up to Topkapi Palace. This was Istanbul's palace of the Sultans of the Ottoman empire from the 15th-19th century. I'm not going into all of the history of the place, but it was pretty spectacular.
They have the palace's treasury setup with the gifts/ spoils of war that the Sultans had aquired through the years, and one of these is an 86-carat cut diamond (the Kaşikçi diamond), housed in a setting of 49 other brilliant diamonds. I cannot express how big this thing is. It is the size of a small apple. And not a crab apple. A regular apple.
The other treasury pieces (four rooms full of these) were weapons, housewares, and other gems that were encrusted in more rubys, emeralds, and diamonds than you could imagine. It was quite a sight to walk through.
More impressive were some of the religious artifacts on display. Items from Joseph, Abraham, Moses, and a bunch from Muhammad. These received far more protection and security than the jewelry did.
Last part I'll tell you about is the Harem. This was a very large part of the palace, just do to its nature. Filled with apartments for women who resided there, apartments for the young princes, libraries, baths. All built around courtyards and hallways created to keep a heirarichal flow present.
Overall, a really good place to visit. I forgot to mention it has a great view of the Bosphorus as well.
I think I'm going to send Hylke a reminder later today about the photo. Just to be safe.
No comments:
Post a Comment