Istanbul Photos 2

15) Suleymaniye Mosque (built by Suleyman the Magnificent). The great Romanian architect (maybe the most prolific of all time) Sinan actually perfected the acoustics inside this place. Built between 1550 - 1557. It may have been the first structure built with earthquake considerations in mind. After about 5 years of ensuring the site was stable (it was a known earthquake-prone location) with the building itself not yet begun, Sinan was given an ultimatum to finish in ~2 years or be killed. He rocked it.

16) A view of the Bosphorus from Suleymaniye Mosque

17) Suleymaniye Mosque

18) The Spice Bazaar

19) Inside Hagia Sophia - not a great shot, but notice the winged creature in the top right - pretty cool. Having been both a church and a mosque (and made a museum in 1935 by Kemal Mustafa Ataturk, the father of the modern state of Turkey, or Turkiye as the Turks call it), this is a really unique edifice.

20) Hagia Sophia

21) Hagia Sophia

22) Hagia Sophia

23) One of the cool tiles unearthed in what is now the Tile Museum.

24) Taksim Square

25) The great Topkapi Palace (pronounced top-kawp-uh - the i is technically the Turkish i without the dot, so enunciated as "uh", not "e").

26) The next big set of photos here are all Topkapi Palace until I note differently.