We left the hotel at 8:00 am. Our guard wanted to be first in line to enter the Hagia Sophia mosque. When Mehmet, our guide, saw a cruise ship in port he was very worried. When we got to the mosque there were about 100 people ahead of us. Ten minutes later there were 1000 behind us including 7 groups from the cruise ship. We got in the mosque with the first group and it was very nice to be able see things and take pictures. Because the building is now a mosque we were required to remove our shoes and cover our heads.

The building dates back to 536 and started out as a Greek Orthodox Church, then a mosque, then it became a museum in 1934 and finally returned to begin a mosque in 2020. The building is clearly Byzantine and is characterized by it’s huge dome that rises 180 feet. The interesting part of the building is that after becoming a mosque (twice) they did not remove all traces of Jesus and Mary. We saw numerous mosaics of them and pictures of angels with faces which are both no, no’s in the Muslim religion.

Next up was the Topkapi Place that was built in 1460 and for four hundred years it was the home of the sultans. I like museums as much as the next person but this was four hours of endless rooms and endless descriptions by our guide. He means well but he is quite a talker.

So it was 5:00 PM when we finished touring the palace. Next on the agenda was the Great Bazaar which is supposed to be the largest in the world. Been there, done that. Peggy and I had no interest in doing that plus we had a dinner cruise scheduled that night. We told our guide we wanted to go back to the hotel and he put us in a cab. The group did not get home until 7:30 PM from the bazaar.

The dinner cruise was very interesting. At our table we had a couple from Chili, a couple from India, a drunk couple from Germany, a single woman from Russia and a single girl from Peru. The food left a lot to be desired but the entertainment was fabulous.

The above picture is the bridge that connects European Turkey with Asian Turkey. This very long day did not end until midnight when we got back to the hotel. Tomorrow we have scheduled this same cruise with our tour but during the day. I can’t wait to see the differences in the sites.