Istanbul Day 3 (Hagia Sophia & New District Walk)

Visiting Hagia Sophia is supposed to be one of the highlights of visiting Istanbul and is Turkey's most visited tourist attraction.  According to my blog post a couple of days ago, the original building was a Christian cathedral in the 530s (Byzantine).  In 1453 it was converted to a mosque by the Ottomans when they removed all the Christian images by plastering over them and added the four minarets.  Between 1935 and 2020 the mosque was converted into a museum when many of the Christian themed mosaics were uncovered.  Since 2020, Hagia Sophia has returned to being a mosque.

Up until January of this year, it was free to visit Hagia Sophia. The price now is 25 Euro per person ($27 USD). It seems like a steep price to pay, but when we will be back in Istanbul to see it again?  There is always a long line to enter Hagia Sophia, so we arrive about 20 minutes before they open at 8:40 AM.  The line wasn't too long when we arrived, but it kept forming behind me.

Another big change since January is that the general public is not allowed to enter the main sanctuary anymore and are made to stay on the upper gallery of the mosque.  The upper gallery is the level of those large round medallions, so it gave us a great view of the vast interior.   It is amazing that this building is 1,500 years old.  As we explore it we will see not only elements of a breathtaking mosque, but we will also see symbols of its 1,000 years of being a Christian church.

​Wow...this interier is vast.  ​It is 250 feet wide by 240 feet long under an amazing dome.  It can hold about 20,000 worshipers 

The dome is 105 feet across and 185 feet high.  The architectural feat is the dome seems to be floating above the ring of windows below it with nothing holding it up.

As you look around you can tell you are obviously in a mosque, but the closer you look , you will see 
Christian elements.  See the crosses painted on the ceiling?

I supposed crosses can be a decorative element anywhere, but how about these amazing mosaics dating from the 900's and 1100's.  As I stated earlier, when the church was converted to a mosque in 1453, many of the mosaics were covered with plaster and were uncovered in the 1930's when the mosque was converted into a museum.  It is odd enough to have human figured in a mosque, but figures of Jesus and Mary...very unusual.

We went back down some stairs and there was a room with this mosaic from the 900's on the wall.  It is Emperor Constantine (on the right) who established istanbul, holding a model of the city. On the left Emperor Justinian, who constructed Hagia Sophia, holding its model, they both present the models to Mary and Jesus.  This panel pretty much tells the story of the origins of Hagia Sophia built as a Christian church.  Very interesting.

We exited Hagia Sophia around 10 AM and was off to a who different part of Istanbul.  We are headed to the New District.  We hopped on a bus that took us to a funicular station.  The funicular took us up the hill to Taksim Square.

Taksim Square is dominated by two polar opposite symbols.  First, and the oldest, is the Republic Monument in the foreground below.  This monument was unveiled in 1928 on the fifth anniversary of the founding of the secular Turkish Republic.  There are even two medallions on opposite sides of the monument (you can see one of the round medallions inside the diamond towards the top of the monument) with one showing a woman's hair covered and the other showing the woman's hair free flying in the wind.

The second is Taksiim Mosque.  Takslim Mosque was constructed from 2017-2021 under great scrutiny by many since Takslim Square ad been closely associated with republicanism and secularism.

It was now 1130 AM and we were starving since we skipped breakfast to get to Hagia Sophia early.  I ordered the mememen (scrambled eggs in tomatoes), my new favorite breakfast dish.  Tim had donner (meat wrap).

After breakfast it was time to walk down the pedestrianized (except for police cars and a street trolly) Istikial (Independent) Street.  After a fire in 1870, the Ottomans rebuilt it in an Art Nouveau style facades.  This street is pretty much the shopping district of Istanbul with American and European clothing stores, cafés, restaurants, and pubs.  There was even a mall with a sporting goods store where I was able to purchase a new pair of shorts to replace the shorts that Holland America Cruise Line lost in the laundry.

Here I am, walking down the street.  By the way, I think all the Turkish flags are hanging because they just celebrated National Sovereignty on Tuesday.

Here are some examples of the Art Nouveau style facades that were up and down this street. 

As we walked around we came across this food stand where they were cooking up fish wraps.  We weren't starving since we just ate about 2 hours ago, but we decided to share one.  It was delicious and cost only 120 Turkish Lira ($3.70 USD).

Here are some photos Tim took of miscellaneous store fronts along the street.  I particularly like the photo with the cat staring though the glass door of a chicken butcher shop.

This area is also one of the most diverse areas in Istanbul with multiple churches scattered around.

Aya Triada Greek Orthodox Church

St. Anthony's Roman Catholic Church

Tim's mosaic of Turkish treats seen throughout the day.

This nostalgic tram runs up and down Istikial Street.  I think Tim snapped the photo every time it passed us.

We made it to the end of the New District Walk around 3:30 PM and made our way down to the waterfront by way of another funicular. We then caught the tram back across Galata Bridged to the Old District where we decided to call in an early day and walked back to our AirBnB.  We arrived back home around 5 PM with some bread and strawberries and made a meal from those along with the leftover mezzos from a couple of days ago.

Tomorrow we take a ferry up the Bosphorus Strait to the Black Sea.  It should be a great day.  Until then...