Hagia Sophia

It was so easy to sightsee in Turkey – it seems there is something around every corner.

Next stop, Hagia Sophia. This mosque is a former patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, now a museum. 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, until the completion of the Medieval Seville Cathedral in 1520.

Basilica Cistern

We visited the Basilica Cistern (aka Yerebatan Sarnıcı), it is the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns that still lie beneath the city of Istanbul. The cistern was used as a location for the James Bond film From Russia with Love.

The Medusa heads were very interesting to see! The origin of the two heads is unknown, though it is rumoured that the heads were brought to the cistern after being removed from an antique building of the late Roman period. Another mystery is why one of the heads is upside down, while the other is tilted to one side. It is commonly accepted by scientists that they were placed that way deliberately.

Blue Mosque

The Blue Mosque (Sultanahmet Camii) is one of the main reasons I wanted to see Istanbul. Visiting this mosque was a very significant part of the trip. In order to see the mosque without hordes of people ruining the experience, we woke up very early (not quite as early as the call to prayer). We were lucky the Blue Mosque was only a 5 minute walk away from our hotel. Later in the day we went back and visited the inside.

The Blue Mosque It was built between 1609 and 1616, during the rule of Ahmed I. Like many other mosques, it also comprises a tomb of the founder.

Hamam (aka Turkish Bath)

The Turkish Bath is the Middle Eastern variant of a steam bath, which can be categorized as a wet relative of the sauna. They have played an important role in cultures of the Middle-East, serving as places of social gathering, ritual cleansing, and as architectural structures and institutions. I heard mothers frequented hamams to find wives for their sons.

How do I explain this with grace? I don’t know that I can. . . . . .a bunch of naked women of all colour, shape and size walking around wet and soapy (except for the men's side of the building of course).

The Hamam we visted was built in 1584 and it was beautiful! The idea is that you lay on a massive circular marble slap in the middle of the round room. The roof was a massive dome which had stars cut into it. Depending on the service you selected (self-service, traditional, or Luxury style) you are given two small domino-type coloured tags and a scrubbing cloth. One tag shows that you are there to be bathed and the other shows that you will then go for a massage.

After lying on the marble stone in the centre of the room, pouring water over yourself from the several “sinks” around the outside of the room, a hamam lady will go over to you and bath you on the marble stone. This involves hard scrubbing followed by lots of bubbles, rinsing and hair washing. That’s as much detail as I will go into on the blog.

For obvious reasons there was no picture taking inside. For pictures check out the website:

http://www.cemberlitashamami.com.tr/

P.S. my locker key was number 30 :-)