A visually dramatic cone-shaped island dotted with pleasant clove-garden villages and colonial gems: this is how books and tourists usually describe Kota Ternate, an island-town off the coast of the larger Halmahera Island, the center of the once powerful Sultanate of Ternate. Kota Ternate and its sibling islands were the world's single major producer of cloves, which made the islands a key player in the Spice Trade and their sultans the wealthiest and most powerful in all of Indonesia.
Today, Kota Ternate is a kotamadya (municipality) of the historical North Maluku (Moluccas) province. The 1721-meter volcano, Pulau Ternate or Gunung Api Gamalama, invites tourists for a guided hike along its clove-covered trails from Air Tege Tege village. Apart from this, there are hardly any sights to worth the name. There are of course some remains of forts built by Dutch colonizers during the 19th century. Among these are Benteng Kalamata, whose angled walls provide great views of the waves; the womb-shaped Benteng Tolukko; and the canyon-crowned bastions of Benteng Oranye.
Built in 1796 and reconstructed later in semi-colonial style, Keraton or the "Sultan's Palace" is the royal family's home with a museum of Dutch and Portuguese war regalia such as swords, armors, and helmets. A section of the museum is reserved for memorabilia from the past sultans, including the town's royal family tree from 1257. A visitor may be called "fortunate" if he or she can be seated in an audience before Ibu Rini, the sultan's sister, who narrates in smooth English the real-life dramas of an Indonesian royal family.