Thom Walstrum's Blog: Istanbul

Technically, we visited Istanbul before going to Azerbaijan, but the visit was little more than a layover during which I spent the majority of my time updating this blog. So the real exploring of Istanbul began when we the return flight from Azerbaijan landed us in Istanbul once again. It's a huge city, with a very important place and history, and a number of important sites to prove it. You get to see pictures of the two main ones, the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia. Both are breathtaking.

We also took some time to visit the modern Istanbul, which was across a bay and to the North. It was lively and fun yet unfortunately, the camera didn't make the trip. So you'll just have to be satisfied with pictures of the old stuff and a bridge.

Have a look at this lovely suspension bridge, which spans the Bosphorus Strait. I very well may have been straddling Asia and Europe when I took the picture. Istanbul is the only city to have residents on two continents.

And what a proverbial bridge between the East and West Istanbul truly is. The culture certainly felt that way to me, and the beautiful buildings fell into line as well. Here we have the Hagia Sophia, one of the most beautiful structures I've ever visited. It was originally a basilica, then a mosque, now it's a museum. It's gone under a number of changes over the years, so you have to use your imagination to picture it in its various incarnations of splendor, but its still mouth-gaping to be inside.

And here is the best I could do to capture the interior. Sadly (or from the perspective of preservation, gladly), the big, central dome was having work done on it at the time. My camera could not taken in its full height, but you can make out a couple windows at the bottom of its perimeter at the top center of the picture, to the left of the scaffolding. Obviously, it's a really big place.

Built, many would interpret, as a response to the size and beauty of Hagia Sophia, we have below the elegant Blue Mosque. It sits at the other end of a beautifully landscaped square facing the Hagia Sophia.