Tourism in Turkey important tourism spots not only in Turkey but also in the world. There are thousands of hotels and other tourist-oriented industries in the city, catering to both vacationers and visiting professionals. Turkey's largest city and metropolis and a leading global city, Istanbul, has a number of major attractions derived from its historical status as capital of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. These include the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (the "Blue Mosque"), the Hagia Sophia, the Topkapı Palace, the Basilica Cistern, the Dolmabahçe Palace, the Galata Tower, the Grand Bazaar, the Spice Bazaar, and the Pera Palace Hotel. Istanbul has also recently
The Fall of the Stone City The Fall of the Stone City The Fall of the Stone City () is a 2008 novel by the Albanian writer Ismail Kadare. Apart from winning the Rexhai Surroi Prize for the best book of the year, in Kosovo; the novel was also shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2013. Kadare had previously written about his home city Gjirokastër in his earlier novels Chronicle in Stone and A Question of Lunacy. Characterizing it as "a masterful recuperation" from Kadare's previous novel The Accident, Peter Carty from The Independent went on to describe it as "an outstanding feat of