More Turkey...

My sister likes my pictures...so here are a few more...

First we start off with the Blue Mosque...probably the most famous mosque in Turkey.

For sure it was beautiful inside...

...the entire interior was covered with hand-painted ceramic tiles.

It was huge and we had to take off our shoes

and carry them in a bag...

Interesting thing though...as much as I enjoyed the building itself, I didn't really feel moved in any way.  It was just kind of a cool building.  After the mosque, we walked across the park and went to a museum called "Hagai Sophia".  It was originally a church before the Muslims took over Turkey, at which point they converted it to a mosque.  In it's day, it was one of the largest and most important churches in the entire Mediterranean.  It was the sister church to this church before it was destroyed in an earthquake.

I loved this church.  It was one of my favourite experiences of the entire trip.  Of course I enjoyed the history and beauty of the building, but even more, I was moved what it represented. 

This is Hagai Sophia from the outside. 

The towers on the four corners were added by the Muslims when they converted the church. Interestingly, domes were originally a Christian invention. The Muslims had never seen them before they took over Turkey. They liked them so much that they began incorporating them into their mosques. Once they became associated with Muslims, Christians no longer used them...

 

The vestibule...

Inside the church it was kind of overwhelming.  It was over a hundred feet from the floor to the top of the dome above you.  Below is a little video of what it was like entering the church...

These are some more of my favourite pictures...

The Muslims tried to cover up all the emblems of Christianity

when they took over the building.  But it was interesting to see

how, over time,so many of the crosses that had been covered up,

reappeared through the paint.

Remember here, where I explained about the secret symbol of

Christ? How the "fish" wasn't really a fish?  Anyhow, you

could see this symbol throughout the church. 

The Muslims didn't recognize it, so they didn't try to destroy it. 

That's it there, the circle with the four lines through it. 

It existed the entire time this building was used as a mosque.  

Some more pictures...

Some of mosaics...

The mosaics are made of hundreds of tiny tiles...

The Grand Bazaar

We also went shopping at the Grand Bazaar...a huge complex of

stores and passage ways that will get you lost inside of

ten minutes if you're not careful...

But if you think you're going to get a deal here?  Not too likely.

You could drop a few thousand dollars here without really working at it...

Turkey is famous for it's glass lamps...

...and of course it's rugs...

The market was cool, but like I said, you needed to go with a pocket full of cash.  I was kind of used to thinking in Bolivianos and at the end of the day, when I figured out that I should have been thinking in Lyra...yea...it was a bit of a surprise.  But it was still lots of fun.

And that was Istanbul...