The Little Sister

Spring 2012 - Istanbul

There is no where you can go in this city that is not beautiful. The first photo was taken walking towards the Little Hagia Sophia, which you can see in the back of the shot, the second from the outside, and the third from inside the mosque. I've included that third, not so fancy photo predominantly because of how cool this church-now-mosque is. Originally know as the Church of the Saints Sergius and Bacchus, (a mouthful, to say the least) the church was literally a miniature version of the Hagia Sofia, though it was built first. Like the Hagia Sofia it was converted into a mosque, but it still has the bones of a Byzantine church for sure. Check out the resemblance between these columns and those of it's larger sister church, and oh wait, does the dome seem to be floating to you?

The fourth photo is of the ubiquitous Hagia Sophia at night time. One of the reasons I love this photo of it so much is because of the lack of minarets. Nothing against minarets in general, but they weren't part of the original structure, and so it's always interesting to see it that way. 

And then there's the lock. I love the locks. I have a feeling most people do, but hey, they always look good in a photo. This one is on the fence that surrounds the Obelisk of Theodosius - the base of the obelisk in the background, contributed by Theodosius, while the obelisk was clearly just relocated by him. From what I can tell, the lock reads, "Groetjes van: Marlie & Thijs oktober 2009" or "Greetings from: Marlie & Tijs October 2009". That was the pretty obvious translation in Dutch, there.