Welcome to Istanbul! Now that is a moustache! A Turkish band playing lively music welcomed us as we got off the ship.
Istanbul - Constantinople! The crossroads between east and west, between Europe and Asia. The center of Christianity for over 1000 years. It served as the capital of four empires: the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Latin Empire and the Ottoman Empire. It was instrumental in the advancement of Christianity during Roman and Byzantine times. Then the Ottomans conquered the city in 1453 and transformed it into an Islamic stronghold.
Hagia Sophia on the right and the Blue Mosque on the left
Hagia Sophia was built in the 6th century AD. The name means, "Holy Wisdom". In 1453 after hundreds of years as the dominate cathedral of Christianity, the Islamic call to prayer was heard for the first time within her walls. In that year the Byzantine Empire ended with Constantinople falling to the armies of Mehmed II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Amazingly Sultan Mehmed stopped his soldiers from destroying the mosaic icons.Any kind of depiction of the human form is forbidden in Islam. For almost 500 years Hagia Sophia was a mosque but in 1934 became a secular museum.
I especially loved seeing the icon of the Virgin Mary with Jesus on her lap surrounded on both sides with Islamic letters that spell out "Allah" and "Mohammed".
Brothers - John and George with Hagia Sophia in the background.
The Sultanahmet Mosque, commonly known as the 'Blue Mosque'.
This mosque was built from 1609 to 1616 and stands just across a park from Hagia Sophia.
Mosque's traditionally have one, two or four minarets. The six minarets of the Blue Mosque make it very unique. The story is that this was a misunderstanding. The Sultan asked his architect to make gold (altin) minarets which his architect understood as six (alti) minarets. Don't know if that is true but it does make a good story. Even better, supposedly there was so much controversy that this new mosque had more minarets than the Haram Mosque in Mecca, which is the holiest in the Islamic world, that the Sultan had to send his architect to Mecca to add a seventh minaret to the Haram Mosque!
You might wonder why this obviously white building is called the "Blue Mosque". Well when you go inside that becomes clear!
20,000 blue tiles line the ceiling and walls!
We were there on a sunny day and the light was brilliant as it shone through the 260 windows and reflected and sparkled off the tiles!
The central dome is designed to lift all eyes heavenward. All the photographers in the group certainly gazed heavenward!
They even had blue head scarfs for all us heathens!
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