This past week has taken me to Turkey where I was a speaker at the IBM Systems Technical University held in in Istanbul. Since this is my first time traveling in this part of the world, I arrived a few days early to do some sightseeing. The first day was spent discovering the historic sites in Old Town. I stopped by Topkapi Palace, the Blue Mosque, and the Hagia Sophia. I also visited the Museum of Archeology to check out their sarcophagi collection. On the way back to the hotel, there was an unexpected splash of color seen through the gates of a nearby park. I had noticed a lot of flower plantings while in the taxi from the airport, but the park was incredible! Elaborate plantings of tulips were everywhere and the park, which I learned was Gülhane Park, was filled with people enjoying the beauty. Almost everyone was in a happy mood with smiles on their faces.
I was curious about all the tulips, so I did a little research and found out that Istanbul has the International Tulip Festival each year. It’s a relatively new event that started in 2006. I also learned that tulips were originated in Turkey, not Holland as many may believe.
Below you’ll find a few pictures…
This blog post was originally published on IBMSystemsMag.com and is reproduced here by permission of IBM Systems Media.