Got back from vacation overseas late last week and have finally found some time to update the blog.

Here are some photos from Istanbul, Turkey, where we went to visit family and do some site seeing and generally get a bit of summer (rain + fog has made it pretty much a write-off here in Atlantic Canada).


This is the courtyard of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. It's all marble and pretty slippery when wet. (We ran into a very rare August downpour the day we visited).

 

These are some details from the ceiling and walls of the Haigia Sophia. The Haigia Sophia was built in the 500's as a Byzantine church commissioned by the Emperor Justinian (the name actually means Divine Wisdom), and when the Ottoman's conquered Constantinople, they plastered over all the religious art within the church and painted their own designs over them rededicating the church as an Islamic mosque. The church is now a museum and the original works are being restored.




We also visited the Museum of Archeology and came across a medusa head in their garden of bits and pieces.

We found two more medusa's in the Byzantine Cistern, a structure constructed in the 500's to store and provide water for the city of Constantinople. Both medusa's are pinned at the base of two of the many hundreds of columns that support the roof, they are pinned supposedly to keep them from being unleashed on the world. Here is a photo of the upside down medusa.




Another structure built around 500 AD is the Galata Tower. The word Galata is apparently derived from the word celtoi which means barbarian. You can go up the tower (which now has an elevator) to the observation deck and get some wonderful panoramic views of Istanbul. This photo of the tower is from down the street as you walk towards the lighting district.




We also visited the Topkapi Palace museum and the Grand Bazaar (Hey mister - come to see my beautiful carpets), took a ferry ride across the Bosphorus over to the Asian side, visited the street market in Ortakoy and generally soaked up loads of sun, good food and good hospitality.