Istanbul/Mongolia Trip - Sunday, March 10th, 2024 - Blue Mosque

After visiting the Hagia Sophia, our tour guide walked us over to the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (commonly know by tourists as “the Blue Mosque” because it’s known for it’s beautiful blue Iznik tiles imported from China that line the walls of the 2nd floor. The Blue Mosque was built between 1609 & 1617. It is built in the classic Ottoman architecture with a central dome surrounded by for semi-domes over the prayer hall. It has 6 minarets (2 more than the Haiga Sophia). When it was built, there was some uproar because it had 6 minarets (the same number as Mecca’s mosque). In order to show that Mecca was the grandest mosque, they built a few more minarets so they could outnumber the Blue Mosque.

This mosque was built over 1000 years after the Hagai Sophia (but still built around the same time the pilgrims sailed to America) & it was GORGEOUS. It’s “newer” & built with beautiful materials, especially the blue tiles that line the walls. At night it glows almost pink & blue so it reminds me of a Disney castle. It was definitely my favorite of the 2 mosques in beauty, but I still have to marvel at the architectural feat of the Hagai Sophia for the time period it was built. Both were incredible. We had to remove our shoes & wear head coverings while inside the mosque which added to the experience. We spent about 30 minutes exploring it’s beauty.

After the Blue Mosque, we visited the Hippodrome located just outside the mosque. The hippodrome was the sporting & social center of Constantinople. They did a lot of horse & chariot races here. It was about 450 meters long & 130 meters wide & it could hold over 100,000 spectators. Theodosius the Great brought an obelisk from Egypt in 390 AD & erected it in the center of the racing track. It was carved of pink granite & came from the Temple of Karnak in Luxor during the reign of Thutmose III in 1490 BC. It was cut into 3 pieces & brought to Constantinople. Only the top section still stands today where he placed it on a marble pedestal.

After visiting the Hippodrome, Trek & I walked around to the Topkapi Palace. About 30 Ottoman rulers (sultans) ruled in this palace for over 400 years. We decided not to do a full tour there, but we walked around it & enjoyed the beauty of its grounds, walls, & gates.

 

Istanbul/Mongolia Trip - Sunday, March 10th, 2024 - Hagia Sophia

After breakfast we headed toward the Hagia Sophia for our tour with a tour guide. We met him & the rest of our group of about 6 people. We really liked the people in our tour group. 2 were from America & 2 were from England & we all hit it off right off the bat. All of us were big historians so it made learning the history SO much more interesting. The Hagia Sophia is a mosque, but was a former Christian church, & a big cultural & historical site in Instanbul. It was completed in 537 AD. It was an Eastern Orthodox church from 360 AD to 1204 & then became a Catholic church after the 4th crusade. After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, it served as a mosque until 1935 when it became a museum. It because a mosque once again in 2020. The museum remains on the 2nd floor of the building & has an active mosque on the first floor which is not open to visitors. The Hagai Sophia was build by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I as the Christian cathedral by the Byzantine Empire between 532-537 (yes, the entire thing was constructed in the 6th century in less than 5 years!). It became the world’s largest interior space & one of the first to to have a fully pendentive dome. It remained the world’s largest cathedral for nearly 1000 years until the Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520.

Our tour here lasted about an hour & we enjoyed walking around the 2nd floor of the building & just admired how incredible it was for it’s time period. The ceilings were once encrusted with gold, silver, & jewels like rubies, emeralds, sapphires, & more. It was plundered during the Ottoman conquest so very few of the precious stones still remain (we could only see a few). The inside has been replastered & repainted several times over the years to help tourists imagine what it looked like in the 6th century when it was built. There are still original beams of wood holding part of the structure of the columns up. These beams are carved intricately & are beautiful. There is a carved marble doorway on one side that is spectacular, & I loved the still present mosaics of Jesus Christ, the mother Mary, John the Baptist & more. Only partial mosaics remain, but they are beautiful. I loved the painted angels with 6 wings on the ceiling. For years, there were plaster masks over the center of each painted angel until one day during restoration, one of the plaster masks fell off to reveal the face of an angel. Only that angel’s face remains uncovered to this day. The plaster masks still hide the other angel’s faces. The dome of the church is huge. It was the largest of its kind for 1000 years. The sheer weight of this dome has modified the structure of the building over time. You can see pillars bending at odd angles under the weight of the dome. Arches & ceilings are changing shape & shifting under the weight. It’s crazy. One big earthquake could bring this building to the ground. The 1st floor is now an active mosque & hosts many visitors & regular Islamic worshippers daily. We could only look upon it from the 2nd floor, but it had beautiful teal carpets & many light fixtures to brighten it. The stain glass windows in it were beautiful. After our tour, we made our way outside & found one more remaining Christian mosaic hidden in an alleyway to the side of the church. It was beautiful. I’m SO glad we had the opportunity to see the Hagia Sophia in all it’s glory.