A Royal Experience

Today was a sacred experience of the most beautiful things that money can buy. My dear friend Michelle was as excited as I to go see the inside of the beautiful castle we pass frequently. It's  about 4 minutes from my house. Matt noticed it reminded him of a sand castle from the outside. He wasn't far off. It is patterned after a traditional Omani Castle which is almost made of sand.  There are many artistic and architectural elements taken from  Jabreen Castle in particular.

This teak carved into the Omani style that was used traditionally for men in the bottom windows and the woman in the top.  It isn't that way anymore of course.

The ceiling patterns is traditional for Omani castles that are a symbol of opulence. 

The lower entrance is for the Royal family and the upper entrance is for his Royal Highness, the Sultan. The marble inside is Travertine from Italy. It's all inlaid and astonishing in details. 

Michelle is looking down into the VIP and Diplomatic entrance. The beautiful chandelier was made there in Oman as were the etched class doors and windows. 

This design is Omani, the Omani window or door and the part Michelle is touching is symbolic of a sunrise and can be seen throughout the building. Triangle pattern around the teak in the picture below is Iranian.

There are paintings through the galleries of traditional Omani Music . Here are the bedouin gathering and singing accompanied by a single-stringed guitar(or lute) called a oud. 

The paintings are beautiful depictions of traditions from the different governantes of Oman. The close up of the inlaid frames have a whimsical musical motif. The Sultan was a brilliant and thoughtful man. He approved every single detail in the building and he made each detail deeply symbolic. I didn't see them but we were told that on the 2nd floor you can see columns with musical notes. If you transpose the notes to the letters, they tell about 8 Operas and their composers. I can't wait to explore this!

The Sultan was gifted an entire collection of instruments. They are artistic, unique, some are very old and all inspiring. I was excited to hear that they're thinking about making a sound example for each of the instruments. Because of course this was what I was thinking-I want to know what they sound like.

I didn't bother tying to take any more pictures in the gallery because it was too incredible for a photograph to do it justice. I couldn't even begin to describe the thoughtfulness, the adaptability, the details and the symbolism that went into this building. The acoustics are perfect. There is a pipe organ with over 4,000 pipes, including several unique pipes. One of these was named for the Sultan, I think the Quboos flute. It wasn't set up for the organ but instead for a ballet or something. He showed us a video of the transformation the gallery can go through to go from an organ performance to a ballet in just 15 minutes. I don't know if it's online but it's worth watching. 

Just like smelling the garlic and onions from dinner well before it's time to eat, I CANNOT WAIT until those doors open and music is within!