Turkish delight on a moonlit night...and then some

Istanbul is beautiful. I can't say enough about it, other than it's probably my favorite place that I've ever visited. I'd live here.

Rather than yammer on in superlatives, I've decided to post a few photos of what we've seen so far.

The top photo is a view of Hagia Sophia from our hotel rooftop terrace. The second photo is from the inside.

Hagia Sofia, also known as St. Sophia or Aya Sophia, was opened in 537 by the emperor Justinian and was the largest church in Christendom. It stayed roughly that way until 1453, when the Ottoman Empire turned it into a mosque. Because Islamic art isn't supposed to depict anything with an immortal soul, mosaics of Christian figures were plastered over and a handful of minarets were built outside. In 1935 Ataturk turned it into a museum. Some of the mosaics have been partially restored, like the one of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus, which is now displayed between Arabic calligraphy proclaiming Mohammed to be the Prophet of God. It's absolutely fascinating.

The third photo is also from our rooftop terrace, and it's of the biggest mosque in Istanbul, Suleymaniye. We went up to the rooftop tonight to watch the sun set and to listen to the evening call to prayer echoing out from all of the big mosques surrounding us. The fourth photo is from Sultanahmet, or the Blue Mosque, which we visited this afternoon. Again...beautiful. It was kind of overwhelming, all of the things we saw today. I had to come back and just kind of sit in the hotel, letting everything sink in.

Tomorrow we're going on a boat tour of the Bosphorous, and we'll check out the Asian side of the city. In the afternoon we'll probably brave the Grand Bazaar. Thursday night we see a belly dancing show. Guess which one of us is most excited about this.

Tonight we went to a restaurant just up the road from our hotel for dinner. The food here is just as good as everything else. I'm glad we're doing a lot of walking, because we're also doing a lot of eating. At dinner tonight, there was a live musician. A woman was playing some sort of Turkish stringed instrument that looked like a cross between an autoharp and a dulcimer. She occasionally sang as well, and took a few requests from a Turkish family seated nearby.

I told Travis if he yelled "Play Freebird!" or asked for "Dueling Banjos" he was sleeping in the lobby.