Here’s a Mosque. There’s a Mosque.

Well, we are exhausted. Our younger selves would be embarrassed by how exhausted our current, older selves are after six hours of touring. But it was so worth it.

Picked up for our tour and dropped off down the hill (damn it) from the Sultanahmet District here Istanbul. We got out first great view of the Blue Mosque walking past it…

Heading to the Hippodrome. The Hippodrome was the site of the chariot races (think Ben Hur…or Google Ben Hur if that means nothing to you coz you are still your younger self!) Except for one curved end of the foundation, these two obelisks and the remnant of one bronze statue, nothing really remains due primarily looting by the Crusaders and destruction by the Ottomans. But in its day it was apparently the Formula 1 race track of its time holding maybe 40,000 spectators for its competitions.

The Egyptian obelisk was brought from Karnak and had to be cut into two pieces to have any hope of safe transport. Only the top portion survived so that what remains is only 18.5 meters of its original 30 meter height. 

Then we headed over to Hagia Sophia. Completed almost 1,500 years ago it was originally a Byzantine church, the largest indoor structure of its time and one of the first ever to utilize a pendentive dome whereby a dome can be suspended above a rectangular structure. Looking up you see a dome with four half domes around it. There were renovations going on…scaffolding and curtains and all so it was hard to photograph but that architecture was used later in the building of mosques including the Blue Mosque (a picture is forthcoming).  In the mid-1400’s, Hagia Sophia, itself, was converted into a mosque.  

Outside on our approach(cropping out the scaffoldings and the covered dome)

Inside: the gold mosaics in the ceilings, the hand cut, book-sawn marble walls, and the intricate columns are really beautiful.

Next stop was the Basilica Cistern. Built in 532 AD the cistern could hold about 21 million gallons of water! Now the water level is kept quite low to allow visitors to view the beauty of the structure.  Over 300 columns support the ceiling…the majority of them were repurposed from other demolitions. The effect of the columns, the ceilings, the lighting, and their reflections in the water is quite mesmerizing. (I took too many pictures. Here are just two.)

And then finally the Blue Mosque. Really the Sultan Ahmed Mosque but commonly referred to as the Blue Mosque because the interior is decorated with over 20,000 hand-painted blue and turquoise tiles. Absolutely stunning.

Whether from the Hagia Sophia

Or from the courtyard

Whether it’s just a minaret

Or the elaborate interior with all of those tiles on the second level

Or, finally, as promised, the view of the dome with the half domes and then the littler domes all radiating out like a brilliant kaleidoscope, it’s simply gorgeous.