Hagia Sophia, Cisterns and eating

So continuing on…

Next stop was the Hagia Sophia!

Originally built as a Christian church, it was the biggest one around for a 1000 years (until St. Peter’s came along)

And suitably grand inside

But if you look closely, you can see Arabic script everywhere.

Now what’s that you think?

When the Ottomans conquered Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul, they also made the Hagia Sophia a mosque.

Here is the door which shows the direction of Mecca

And the Sultan’s box, so he didn’t have to mix with the rabble

But if you close enough, you can still see glimpses of its Christian grandeur

And now the Hagia Sophia is a museum.  And with museums you get cats!

Well worth a visit!

Next stop, the Cisterns.

What are the cisterns?  They store water.  For the city.  As back up.  What’s so great about that?  Well….. If you had too much money, what would you do?  I would of course spend lots of money making my water tank look pretty.  Because obviously in the future tourists would want to see it.

Like this

Sorry that there aren’t many more photos.  It was very very dark inside so only a couple of shots came out well.  I even tried balancing the camera on the blind girl’s head, but she wasn’t steady enough.

It was also very cold down there…  So no sticking around.

So after all that water, I wasn’t thirsty, but I was hungry!

This is Lahmacun.  Turkish pizza!  Very thin base, minced lamb topping.  A bit spicy.  Quite tasty!

This is another version we had.  This also has cheese and pepperoni in the middle.

And here is kebab.  Chicken and lamb (no pork in Turkey sorry!).  Served with spicy rice.  Actually not bad!  Not that filling though, but just means, more space for dessert!

From top clockwise, vanilla pudding, rice pudding and raspberry jelly.  Quite quite tasty.  But the best bit has to be

The ICECREAM.  Pistachio icecream.  So I use to think that Italian icecream was the best.  But this was different.  It is hard.  Very hard.  You need a knife to eat it.  It has a interesting firm texture and melts very slowly.  You can even wave it around on a stick without having it fly off and land on someone else’s face.

Yum.

Until next time.