Tour - Day 1

Today was the first day of our tour. We were only three, us and Fred from San Diego who is on an exchange program and will be teaching in Madrid next semester. He and Armando are both architects and both speak Spanish, so they are already fast friends. Our guide, Jon, is about 30, cute and speaks good English so we are learning a lot about the history and culture. We started out visiting the Rustem Pasa Mosque.....

....and the New Mosque (from the 17th century, new is relative).

Then we walked through the spice market - oh my! I wish I could post the smells to the blog. Like we were in heaven! I wish there was a market like this in Memphis!

Next we took a cruise on the Bosphorus Strait which connects the Black Sea and the Marmara Sea (and eventually the Mediterranean. We saw the new palace used by the last Sultan who decided Topkapi Palace was too Asian and he needed a more European palace. And we saw many summer homes of Sultans and other important people. Some are still used, some are hotels. And lots of fancy houses and boats parked in front. We made a stop on the Asian side so we can say we were in two continents today. We ended our ride near the Black Sea and took the bus back after an amazing lunch - lots of appetizers (mezes like Spanish tapas) - I was ready to be finished, and then they brought the main course. If they feed us this well at every meal we’ll be in trouble!

New palace

From there we went to the Chora Church museum. This church dates from around 1100 and was once filled with mosaics. There are still many to see, but many were destroyed by the Crusaders who plundered the church looking for gold. After the Ottomans took control the church was converted to a mosque and most of the remaining mosaics were plastered over. Fortunately many are restored.

But the highlight of the day was the Aya Sofya, the most visited museum in Turkey.

It was built by Byzantine emperor Justinian I in just five years, completed in 537. (Amazing what you can accomplish with lots and lots of cheap labor!!) This was the seat of the Orthodox Church ("the Eastern Vatican") for 900 years. The original dome collapsed soon after it was built, so another taller more round dome took its place. For 1000 years it was the greatest dome in the world, until Brunelleschi built his dome in Florence.

The entire inside was once covered in mosaics but in 1453 when the Ottomans conquered Constantinople, it was converted to a mosque and the mosaics were plastered over. Fortunately some have been restored.

I can’t even describe this place - it is so huge and so beautiful. You will all just have to come here and see for yourselves!

See the light fixtures? They are electric now, but once they all held candles or oil lamps which had to be lit!