If Queen Victoria had asked William de Morgan to redo the interior of St. Paul's Cathedral, no expense (or tile) spared, it might have ended up looking like the Sultan Ahmed Mosque. More familiarly known as the "Blue Mosque" after the more than 20,000 hand-made ceramic tiles that line its interior, it was built in Istanbul between 1609 and 1616.
Many of the tiles came from the town of Avanos in Cappadocia. We visited one of the oldest ceramics businesses in town and got the soup to nuts tour, starting with the clay cave.
The final products.....stunning but not cheap, this plate would set you back hundreds of dollars. I wish I had bought a few tiles at the time, if only to use as trivets...c'est la vie.
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