Hagia Sophia

  Yesterday we went to  a place that had originally been built around 537 BC called Hagia Sophia and it has been a Greek Orthodox Church, a Catholic Church and a Mosque, depending on who was in control of the city at different times in the last couple of thousand years.  It is huge and incredibly solid feeling.  The outside doors are arched in stone and appears to be a defensive structure, but inside is another stone wall about 40cm thick.  It has a series of doors with the centre one being about ten meters high.  Above the door is gold leaf and mosaic tile pictures, mostly Christian looking.  Inside are high domes and arches and detailed art covering the roof and walls.  There is a high balcony, that we walked up to along a winding rock based pathway that had a definite 'many feet have walked here' feeling and up to the next storey, where all the floors are huge, flat chucks of marble.

As you walk along the floor, the level changes quite a bit, which is kind of freaky, considering it is a long way down if it decides to take that moment to give up the ghost.  The place was packed with tourists and in one corner of the church was a wishing column, with a hole to put you thumb and a very well worn brass plate for the protection of the marble column.  You had to completely rotate your hand, palm flat, while keeping your thumb in the hole.  Of course I wished for world peace, but I'm damn sure plenty of Lotto was requested!  One of our group stepped up to have her turn and was immediately taken out at the knees by a hoard of Asian ladies, who although smaller than us, didn't see the clearly formed Kiwi line/group (although how they missed us, I can't imagine) and they began posing with thumb in aforementioned hole and others took photos.  At this point, most of our group decided it wasn't worth the hassle and moved on.

In the 1930s when there was a dispute about which church had rights to Hagia Sophia, some rather clever politician decided it should become a museum for everyone to enjoy and now, no religious ceremonies occur there.

Outside are beautiful gardens, with lines and lines of tulips and Hiascinths ( spelt wrong) and these gardens appear all over the city.  What also appears are the worlds largest collection of laid back dogs and cats, that belong to no one, but also everyone.  They just cruise around, snooze anywhere as tourist walk amongst them AND in true dog fashion, dig in those beautiful gardens!!!  Bear would be proud of these Turkish dogs mining efforts!  but there would be hell to pay if she dared dig up my tulips like that!