Turkiye 2023: Hagia Sophia

Walking out of the Blue Mosque, we saw that the humongous line in front of Hagia Sophia was gone and the queue was quite short now. Just our luck! We don't need to wake up early tomorrow to visit it. The catch though we found out was that Hagia Sophia seems to be instituting crowd control because the line stayed put for over 30 minutes as we watched people after people walk out of the mosque.

When we eventually got in, the place was crowded as well, but it looked like the mosque can hold more people. The effort to control the number of people inside is well and good, that despite the number of people inside at the same time, there was room to move.

I just wish we had a guide to explain to us what we were looking at. Well, our guided tour has this tour as part of their optional tour program, which means there's extra fee to take this tour. And more often than not, these Optional Tours are overpriced. Anyway, I did not see a guided tour at the time of my visit. I wonder if they have a separate time to allow guided tours versus individual tours.

Since the history of Hagia Sophia is very rich and quite long, I found a few articles that are worth reading - this, this, this, and this. Of course, Wikipedia is always a good place to start.

Captured on the night of our arrival in Istanbul.

Taken while we were in line.

The fountain in the courtyard, built in 1740 by Sultan Mahmut.

Here is where we entered.

Baptismal font in the exonarthex of Hagia Sophia.

Mosaic of Emperor and Christ above the Imperial Door.

The ceiling of the exonarthex is decorated in mosaics. Good read here.

The following are photos of the main mosque, or whatever it's called.

Mosaics of seraph around the Dome.

The prayer area separated by a low fence or barrier.

Could not help myself taking another photo of Blue Mosque after leaving Hagia Sophia on the way to our next adventure for the day. This has been one long and very productive day. And it's not going to end until the very last few minutes of this day.