The karavansaray proved to be a very comfortable hotel and once the wedding celebration ended (12:15 am), was quiet and peaceful. Yep, we're in Turkey - cheese, olives, bread, tomatoes, and cucumbers for breakfast - and Nescafe coffee......walked to two mosques - the Old Mosque, with beautiful large calligraphic decorations and then Sinan's masterpiece, the Selimiye Camiisi. It is a stunning structure and definately a testament to Sinan's desire to create open spaces with an open reach to the heavens. His main goal was to be able to surpass the dome of Hagya Sophia AND open the space, moving columns out of the central meeting space. The Selimiye dome is 1 meter larger in diameter and the decoration so exquisite. Pictures don't even begin to capture the essence.
We then drove to the BeyezidII complex with a medical school and hospital, just out of town. The Ottomans were excellent healers in their day, with surgeries and psychiatric treatments, some not all that different from some techniques used by advanced hospitals in the world today. Still glad I live in the 21st century!
Driving back across Turkey, I thought about the travelers across the centuries....traders of the Spice Trade, Nomadic herders, Silk Road caravans, Crusader knights, conquering armies of the Greek, Illyrians, Macedonians, Roman, Byzantine, Selchuk, Ottoman, Italian, and more and beyond (WWI and II). And now a group of tired teachers....so much now to process and reconcile.
We then drove to the BeyezidII complex with a medical school and hospital, just out of town. The Ottomans were excellent healers in their day, with surgeries and psychiatric treatments, some not all that different from some techniques used by advanced hospitals in the world today. Still glad I live in the 21st century!
Driving back across Turkey, I thought about the travelers across the centuries....traders of the Spice Trade, Nomadic herders, Silk Road caravans, Crusader knights, conquering armies of the Greek, Illyrians, Macedonians, Roman, Byzantine, Selchuk, Ottoman, Italian, and more and beyond (WWI and II). And now a group of tired teachers....so much now to process and reconcile.
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