Ayasofya... Basilica cistern... Kariye... The Bazaar...

The Ayasofya, built as an Orthodox church around 550AD was the largest building in the world for nearly 1000 years. The conquest of Istanbul by the Ottoman Turks in the 1400's resulted in all (?) churches being turned into mosques. Since the churches had images of people and animals, they were covered over with other materials, usually plaster. When Attaturk declared Ayasofya a museum after the founding of the republic, restoration by removing plaster etc began, revealing gold mosaics of various Christian icons. But before this happened, the crusaders, when they arrived in Istanbul on their way to the holy land in the 11th century to expand the reach of Christianity, admired the riches of istanbul so much, they decided to stay here... And melt the gold off their brethren's church walls. (Hence the great schism.... Well, it was more complicated than that, but this is a blog.) In any event, much of the gilt-adorned mosiacs etc. is now lost and many damaged walls were uncovered in the modern era.

















(stairway to the upper level)

















The basilica cistern was amazing. After that, Ali called our driver to take us a bit further away to a hilltop vista of the city where we could see the Galata Tower and the bridges we crossed. And from our vista we could see on the top of the hill on the other side of town near the end of the golden horn, the Ayasofya.






Kariye, the church of the savior at Chora, which too became a mosque and now is a museum, has some of the best preserved Byzantine art anywhere. It too after peeling back the coverings on the walls, showed missing tiles and signs of plundering.














Neat how the altar area in these former churches have a modified part, always off center from the altar because it points in the direction of Mecca.

Lunch today was again amazing. And included with our private guide. After lunch, we took a peek at the grand bazaar's 4400 shops, but even though it was far from crowded (as the bazaar goes, we bailed quickly). Lisa might enjoy shopping, but she hates hawkers and markets! Besides, we didn't need anything and where would we put it!!!







































Dinner was on the top floor of a crappy hotel that had a million dollar view of the Blue Mosque. Pictures don't do it justice.