İznik

— The main attraction are the tiles: over twenty thousand of them, constituting such a tall order that the İznik kilns were practically exhausted. Still in evidence are the clear bright colors of the best period of late sixteenth-century İznik ware, including flower and tree panels as well as more abstract designs. […] It’s hard to believe that İZNİK, a somnolent farming community at the east end of the lake of the same name, was once the seat of empires and scene of desperate battles.