Hagia Sophia

Everywhere there is color.  This city is so rich in textures and colors, smells and sounds!

Today was Sunday and what better way to honor the day than to spend it in one of the greatest buildings in the world that honors both the Christian and the Muslim traditions?  My plan was to spend the day in Hagia Sophia and again, take as many photos as possible. 

At first I wandered the streets and photographed anything that looked interesting.  This meant a LOT of photos.  I had not eaten by 1pm and decided it was time to seek some lunch.  I stopped by a walk up place on the street that everyone was going to and ordered a meat pita.  I spoke to several students from the US who were studying in Germany and had come over for a few days.  A great endorsement for study abroad, these folks were making the most of it.  It was fun to talk to them.  Then my sandwich arrived.  It had fries in it.  Fries in a pita. 

Emperor Justinian had his incredible church built as part of a larger scheme to restore the greatness of the Roman Empire.  By the 6th century AD, the glory of old Rome had fallen away and Constantinople was really the greatest city in Christendom.  The church itself is built over the ruins of two previous churches and evidence of the earlier structures has been discovered in various excavations around the church site.  When you enter, you simply stand there in silence.  Sure, there are bigger buildings in the world.  Even bigger churches.  But when you pause to consider the history here it simply defies comprehension that this building is almost 1500 years old.  Unlike the massive elephant piers in the blue mosque, the support for the dome is hidden in the walls, supported by 40 gigantic ribs made out of hollow bricks from Rhodes.  It makes you wonder what is holding the place up.

The walls are covered with mosaics of Jesus, Mary, John the Baptist, and of course, Justinian.  When the Ottoman occupation took place, the mosaics were covered as Islam forbids images in in the mosque.  Instead, Islamic writing tells the stories of the covered frescoes, so that the spirit of the images is preserved.  Islam recognized Jesus as a prophet and Mary as the mother of the prophet.  If fact, Islam was fairly tolerant of Christians practicing their faith.  They basically let the early Christians that were absorbed into the Ottoman empire continue to practice their faith.  The altered the building very little structurally except to add some minarets around the outside, paint over the frescoes, hang huge medallions with the names of the Islamic prophets on them (in Arabic), and buttress the walls from outside.  With it's first nine hundred years as a Christian building and the next four hundred as an Islamic building, the best choice when Turkey became a secular state was to make it a museum, which it now is.  

I went to the upper gallery today to try to photograph the frescoes.  I was reprimanded by a guard for using a tripod.  Hide your tripod.  I am learning this.  They think you are a professional when you use a tripod.  I hid my tripod and was able to sneak it out for a few shots.  Good thing it is small.  I can reflect at length about why it should be OK to photograph however you need to.  They say" no flash" and there is even a sign up to that effect, but people were using flashes all over the place.  Nowhere, anywhere does it say "no tripod".  I rest my case.    I took a total of 270 photos in there.  About a dozen are good.  I was happy to spend the time there. I went downstairs and took more photos.  And used a tripod.  No one even bothered me at all.  Maybe that particular guard was frightened by a tripod as a small child....

As I left the building, I stopped for some tea and watched the crowds.  The apple tea and flower tea here is great.  I'm starting to like tea.  As I was walking to the garden, a very sweet old woman asked if I would buy a scarf from her.  I had not planned on buying a scarf and I thanked her.  She called after me and kept lowering the price.  It was crazy.  She was asking for half the price in the markets.  She was sweet.  I couldn't resist her.  I bought a scarf and we were both happy.  I then came back and used the mini-disc recorder that Melissa loaned to me.  I recorded the call to worship at 6:40pm.  Then it was dinner time.  I stopped to watch the dervishes and listen to some music.  I wanted to find a nice place for dinner, but not THAT nice of a place.  I wanted someplace where they did not put fries in my sandwich.  I finally found the perfect place for me.  Not fancy, not expensive, the name said it all:  "Meat House".  I dove through the door and had a superb mixed grill with Turkish meatballs (spicy!) and various other grilled meats set on top of a grilled sesame pita.  Veggies and yogurt completed the meal and it was delicious.  You can see how this style of cooking evolved from nomadic tribes.  It is everywhere here and it is great.  A quiet walk home topped off the evening.  I need to be up early.  I leave for Capodoccia tomorrow!