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Dolmabahçe Palace, built between 1843 and 1856 by order of Sultan Abdulmejid I, replaced the outdated Topkapı Palace as the royal residence. Designed by Ottoman-Armenian architects of the Balyan family, the palace blends Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical, and traditional Ottoman styles.
It is the largest palace in Turkey, covering 45,000 m², with 285 rooms, 46 halls, and the world’s largest crystal chandelier. Lavishly decorated with gold, crystal, marble, and rare carpets, the palace reflects the Empire’s desire to align with European tastes during the Tanzimat reforms, at great financial cost.
Six sultans lived here until the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk later used it as a summer residence and died there in 1938. Today, the palace is a museum managed by Turkey’s Directorate of National Palaces.
The name 'Dolmabahçe' (meaning 'Filled-in Garden') comes from the palace’s location, once a bay on the Bosporus, later transformed into an imperial garden.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.