1650 years old. Famous in particular for its massive dome, it is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture. It was the largest cathedral in the world for nearly a thousand years. It served as the cathedral of Constantinople.  In 1453, Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and Sultan Mehmed II ordered the building to be converted into a mosque. It remained a mosque until 1935 when the newish independent Turkish state secularized it and turned it into a museum.

After visiting Hagia Sophia, we made one more stop. Very cool. The Basilica Cistern. A huge underground water storage vault. Two of the columns had Medusa heads on the bottom which were discovered during renovations.

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque is called the “Blue” Mosque because of beautiful blue ceramic ties on the walls. It may be noted that there are at least 6 other mosques known as “The Blue Mosque”. But this is an amazing building. It was built between 1609 and 1616, during the rule of Ahmed I. He appointed his royal architect Sedefhar Mehmet Ağa, a pupil and senior assistant of the famous architect Mimar Sinan to be in charge of the construction. The interior of the mosque is lined with more than 20,000 handmade ceramic tiles, made at Iznik (the ancient Nicaea) in more than fifty different tulip designs. We’ll be making another visit here as part of our Islamic Art tour. But for now…

And now our first visits to beautiful buildings in Istanbul.

First, the Şehzade Mosque.  According to my friend wikipedia:

The Şehzade Mosque was commissioned by Sultan Suleiman I in memory of his eldest son, Prince Mehmet, who died of smallpox at the age of 21 in 1543, though the cause for his death is disputed. It was the first major commission by the Imperial Architect Mimar Sinan, and was completed in 1548. It is considered by architectural historians as Sinan’s first masterpiece of classical Ottoman architecture.

Then back on the bus, passing under a 4th century Roman aqueduct (Constantinople was the sat of the Eastern Roman Empire pre-Ottoman-control…). Encountering some rain as we approach the “Blue” Mosque.