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Edirne Palace, once the residence of Ottoman sultans, was built starting in 1450 under Sultan Murad II and completed by Mehmed the Conqueror in 1475. Located by the Tunca River, it served as a royal complex during Edirne’s time as the empire’s capital.
Over time, sultans like Suleiman the Magnificent and Ahmed III expanded the palace, adding pavilions, bathhouses, and gardens. At its height, it had 72 buildings, 14 mansions, 18 bathhouses, 8 mosques, and housed over 34,000 people. The central building was the seven-story Cihannüma Pavilion, featuring the sultan’s quarters and library.
After 1718, the palace was largely abandoned, damaged by earthquakes, fires, and wars. It was almost entirely destroyed during the 1877–78 Russo-Turkish War. Only a few structures, like the Justice Pavilion (Kasr-ı Adalet) and parts of the Imperial Kitchen, Sand Pavilion Bathhouse, and Hunting Lodge, remain.
Today, archaeological and restoration efforts are underway to revive the palace, with some sections already restored and open for public use.
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.