Day 2 - Istanbul, Türkiye (Turkey), October 20-21, 2023 - Blue Mosque

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After a long three-flight journey from Kansas City through Chicago and Frankfurt on Thursday, October 19, we landed safely in Istanbul, Türkiye at 1 PM local time, Friday October 20.  Diane took two half-hour naps, and I may have dosed 15 minutes during our flights.  No sleep is best when flying east to limit the effects of jet lag.

Inside the airport terminal



Our first two nights were spent at the Istanbul Sheraton Atakoy Inn


View from our hotel room window


Concession area beside swim pool; note the "sails"



On Saturday, October 21 we bused into Istanbul, the bejeweled capital of Istanbul, which sits between two continents and is home to 450 mosques.  We visited the famous Blue Mosque with its six minarets and sparkling interior.  To say the mosque is massive is an understatement!

The Blue Mosque in Istanbul, also known by its official name, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Turkish: Sultan Ahmet Camii), is an Ottoman-era historical imperial mosque located in Istanbul, Turkey. It was constructed between 1609 and 1617 during the rule of Ahmed I and remains a functioning mosque today. It also attracts a large number of tourists and is one of the most iconic and popular monuments of Ottoman architecture.

The mosque has a classical Ottoman layout with a central dome surrounded by four semi-domes over the prayer hall. It is fronted by a large courtyard and flanked by six minarets. On the inside, it is decorated with thousands of Iznik tiles and painted floral motifs in predominantly blue colors, which give the mosque its popular name. The mosque's külliye (religious complex) includes Ahmed's tomb, a madrasa, and several other buildings in various states of preservation.

The mosque was built next to the former Hippodrome (horse racetrack) and stands across from the Hagia Sophia, another popular tourist site. The Blue Mosque was included in the UNESCO World Heritage Site list in 1985 under the name of "Historic Areas of Istanbul."





























The following day we returned to the mosque area to visit St. Sophia (Hagia Sophia)













 

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