Istanbul Continued

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As I write this blog the calls to prayer echo all around me, we are surronded by mosques and each mosque has its own call. it is an eery sound at first but one gets to enjoy it, one mosque after another starts and your ears are filled with the sounds

Ahmet also showed us through Aya Sofa, (Haghia Sophia) this huge building now a museum , but once a church and also a mosque it is across Sultanahmet park from the Blue Mosque it was originally built in 537 however various fires and earthquakes have ruined and destroyed rebuilds till the present building which was rebuilt by the Ottomans in the 15th century

We again entered quickly though there was long queues, the mosaic tiles in this building just leave you gazing at the ceiling and asking how the heck did they achieve first of all building such a large building and secondly decorating in. As you cast your eyes over the ceiling some metres above impressions of The Virgin Mary and Christ , you dont have to be religious to marvel at the sheer beauty of these mosaics .

Next it was a walk through the Basilica Cistern an old underground water storage system built in 532 to supply water to the Palace. For a century after the Ottomans conquered Constantinople ithey were not aware of its existence. Today it is a tourist attraction and sometimes used for concerts and weddings.

Ahmet took us to lunch at his Uncles Carpet Shop ( dont laugh, you must of known this bit was coming). Sheryll and I had already spoken that the one thing we wanted to bring home from Turkey was a rug so we were well prepared for the hard sell. To cut a long story short we are now the owners of an ancient rug from Eastern Turkey which had been hand made as a dowry by the family of the bride. We manged to haggle real well and got the price reduced by two thirds. DHL are shipping it back home for us as there wa no way we could have rolled it like a bed roll and strapped it to our pack

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