Al Faw

These are some pictures of Al Faw Palace, not far from here. There are Palaces EVERYWHERE. Some two blocks apart.

This one's particularly striking. Like a few, surrounded by water.










Al Faw at night.














A well-apportioned lavatory. Many of them look like this. As for Saddam's Palaces - the wood-work, stone-work, fixtures like chadeliers - all seem as though they were done by the same contractor, with the same supplies, (which they likely were). Stunning at first - then tired, trite, and shop-worn once you've seen a few.

And paper-thin. Because of the damage to many of these edifices - inside and out - you see just what a thin veneer, a thin gloss these things had on them. Shoddy workmanship, poor materials. And tacky as only the Arabs can manage. Style over substance. Ostentation over class. These Palaces are to Versailles or Vienna, what a "pimped-out" Lincoln is to a subdued Rolls Royce.














The ceiling above a chandelier.