Day 1

First full day of the tour today and a leisurely start @ 10am. Went to the Hippodrome, Blue Mosque. Sophia Hagia and Topkapi Palace

Sophia Hagia has an interesting history – being first a church, then a mosque and now a museum. Some of the church decorations were altered and when the church became a mosque and are still there now – the best example of this is the Seraphim – in the Church this had been a face surrounded by 6 wings – just painted over the face in the middle and kept the wings. All images of people in the church was covered over so that when the muslims prayed they wouldn’t be bowing down/worshipping a person rather than Allah.

Blue Mosque was bustling – as it was Ramadan – there were stalls in the courtyard as well as many people making pilgrimage to this mosque. Canar led us inside where we sat on the floor near the Women’s prayer area and listened as he explained to us about the history of the mosque and some of the Muslim culture. To be honest while listening I did get a little distracted watching people come and go at their worship – we weren’t there at a call to prayer – the mosque is closed at that time – but there were a lot of people coming and going.

The mosque it’s self is beautiful with tiles, carvings and carpets – the carpets are woven in a pattern that contains hundreds of prayer mats


Sophia Hagia Photos @ Kodak
Blue Mosque Photos @ Kodak
Topkapi Palace Photos @ Kodak