The Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia

After a quick tram/streetcar ride to Old Town, we jumped into full tourist mode - seeing the sights of Istanbul. So many "friendly" Turkish guys were around to greet us too. 

"My family owns a carpet shop near the Blue Mosque. Would you like to buy a carpet."

"The Blue Mosque is going to close soon, you better go see it right away. Afterwards, you can visit my family's carpet shop."

"Where are you from? I have family there. We also have a carpet store here."

They were polite and didn't seem to mind when we just ignored them.

Oddly enough, our first destination was the Blue Mosque because we learned that it was due to close for prayer time within an hour or so. Our impressions of this structure were of its immense light and airy spaces crowned with beautiful stained glass windows. Here are some examples. 

The large columns support the huge central dome and are described as elephant legs. The structure below, next to the column, is where the choir is located during prayer services. 

There are no pews or seats generally. Instead there is very plush, deep carpeting. Everyone must remove his or her shoes before entering the mosque - any mosque. There are bags to use to carry your shoes with you or you can leave them at the door - which assumes you'll leave through the same door, of course. 

You can see the suspended lighting, which are electric bulbs now, but they used to be candles that could be lowered to light and extinguish. 

The Blue Mosque is a beautiful and impressive structure, no doubt, but its neighbor wins the challenge in the awesome category. 

Hagia Sofia - was the largest church in Christendom, the eastern version of St. Peter's, which was converted into a mosque, and then made into a museum as a compromise. Compared to the Blue Mosque the inside is much darker and, right now, a major portion is occupied by scaffolding.

As you can see from the picture, there were lots of tourists including school kids on a field trip.

What were they looking up at? These: mosaics and frescoes, large Islamic script banners, and domes.

Elements of the two religions co-exist here. 

To go from the ground floor to the next level, there were ramps instead of stairs. One ramp was about four people wide and was paved with stones that were worn down a bit after 1500 years of foot traffic. To learn more about Hagia Sophia, consider reading the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia - their pictures are better too. 

Just outside the Hagia Sophia grounds are lots of tombs of sultans and their relatives. Here are pictures of their resting places - the ones with turbans are the males.

and all that before lunch!