Once inside RPC, we stopped at the Falcon Palace for dinner. A pre-war complex for Ba'athist elite, Falcon was converted to a DFAC, chapel and several MWR offices. The name comes from the enormous feathered creature in the entrance...
Dinner completed, our next adventure lie up the hill... Radwaniyah. Its artificial perch came from the tailings of local man-made lakes. As such the stability is suspect and structure is empty... condemned property... but the interior is pristine and perfect for exploring... !
Here's a satellite-view of Radwaniyah from space. See the spiral driveway and palm trees along its slopes...
What Saddam Hussein palace would be complete without a swimming pool... both inside and out.
Dusk was upon us so we quickened our pace... this is the ceiling and floor of a "minor" Hussein palace entrance...
Another common feature of a Saddam residence are elevators... legend has it Saddam detested body odor & sweating and adored A/C...
On the second floor we found this long banquet room... that led out to a large balcony. Note the 2003-invasion era sandbags. This is a NE view towards BIAP and Baghdad...
We saw dozens of bathrooms... each with marble showers and sunken tubs... Don't let those faucet knobs tempt you! They're zinc-plated... and off-limits per GO-1A...
We saw scads of French Rococo furniture... everywhere... even scattered in the staircase...
Radwaniyah's massive doors were impressive... carved, plated, mosaic inlay... and heavy!
Some walls were adorned with tile art work... this one reminds me of Minerva Teichert's Tree of Life...
This floor-to-ceiling tile art could only be seen with camera flash and says, "God is Great!" in Arabic...
A cabinet door with amazing inlay patterns was found in one of the guest rooms on the third floor...
In the early days of the OIF, soldiers slept inside Radwaniyah... here's a bunk proped inside a suite. Catchy trend = Nouveaux-Ikea meets Neo-Iraqi...
From the third floor we spied a hidden spiral staircase... leading to the palace roof... note the red penlight... all the visibility we could muster... eek!!!
