Sun, 20 Apr 2003

author Tim	location Sultanahmet, Istanbul, Turkey
posted 14:18 EEST	section Europe2002/Asia/Turkey ( all photos )

Hagia Sophia ( 63 photos )
Today we have wandered around the Hagia Sophia, which I will do a more complete write up complete with photos some time soon.
We have found an Internet cafe not far from the centre of town in a Hostel called the Antique Cafeteria and Internet. Quite a quaint little place really.
OK, going now, we are both well and the weather is much better today!

(More at 16:28 EEST 21/04/2004, from Gen¨türk Cadessai 29, Laleli, Istanbul, Turkey (SULTAN), by Liz)
In the morning, we had a quick shower and then headed off in the direction of Sultanahmet, via the Grand Bazaar (which is closed on a Sunday, but as we discovered, there are still plenty of people trying to sell stuff around the place). We had bread again for breakfast, but I'm hoping to try something more adventurous in the coming days.
We then went past a Turkish Tea House, so we decided to go in. It was a very relaxing place, with lots of brightly coloured chairs and tables to sit at. We ordered two teas and they came to us in the proper Turkish way - a little glass cup that you hold by the rim, on a saucer, and a couple of cubes of sugar. We found you need a suprising amount of sugar for such a small amount of tea. It has a strange taste, but I think I could get used to it.
After sitting there a while, we walked futher onwards to the Hag(h)ia Sophia. This is a massive building steeped in history - more than 1400 years old.
The building that stands there now is built over two earlier churches which were both burnt down (or maybe just the second one was burnt down). There is no trace of the first one, and a small excavation of the second one.
The building that stands now was built in under six years (incredible when you look at the height of the dome, let alone all the pillars and giant marble slabs everywhere. It was finished in 537AD, and the architecture is spectacular, as are the mosaics, paintwork and generally the enormity of the building.
It started out being a Christian church, and then in the 1400s it was taken over and became a Mosque until 1935 when Atatürk (the founder of the Turkish Republic) put forward that it should be a museum, and it has been ever since.
The height and size of Hagia Sophia is breathtaking. It is one of the seven wonders of the world, and I can easily see why.
The mosaics of Christian scenes - mostly with Christ or the Virgin are beautiful and very detailed. Unfortunately, large sections of some are missing, as they are made of hight quality gold, and others remain covered up by plaster from when it was a mosque.
The decorative paintwork on the walls and high ceilings soaring overhead, the marble columns, the few stained glass windows, the height of the dome are all incredible. It is well worth the expensive entrance fee, especially if the majority of the money goes to the upkeep and restoration of the building.
I could write all day about the beauty of this place :) The outside is comparitvely quite ugly - a lot of it has been added on to reinforce the original building.
We then decided to go for lunch - and the food was almost as breathtaking as t the Hagia Sophia had been - stuffed tomatoes, potatoes and zucchini, meatball (kofte) and potatoes and chicken goulash.
It all tasted delicious, and I would be very happy to eat that kind of food every day!
Next we wandered to an Internet Cafe we had seen the day before - attached to a youth hostel. It was quite nice inside, and we were lucky to be able to connect the laptop up. We were there for about an hour, emailing and ICQing to Tim's parents.
After that we wandered back to our hotel, stopping to buy some baclava along the way (delicious as well!), and then we went and had tea again at the same tea house (Tim had a coffee that was thicker than yesterday's one!). I also bought a hairclip from a street stall, and then we made it back here to our room.
The weather today has been much better. It is still cold outside, but the sun has been out quite a lot, which has made it a very pleasant day to be walking outside. It will be nice if the weather stays like this.
I was really expecting it to be much hotter here, but it is cooler than last week was in London.
There are quite a lot of Aussies wandering around here, and we will get to meet some in a few days when our tour starts.

(customised)