This is the Obelisk of Theodosius. From where we were staying, it's around the corner of the Sultanahmet Cami — aka the Blue Mosque. The obelisk is in fact originally from Egypt, but was moved and put up in Constantinople in the 4th century by Emperor Theodosius (aha!).
Unlike Hagia Sophia, which is a museum now, the Blue Mosque is an active mosque. It's attended daily by tourists and worshippers alike. Whichever category you're in, it's an impressive place to walk up to.
Outside every mosque there are fountains for washing your feet. Some of them are beautifully arranged (there are also well-kept bathrooms outside every mosque; these can come in very handy).
As in the Hagia Sophia, the lights are suspended from the insides of the domes. The cables themselves are very striking (and the domes are spectacular).
The Blue Mosque had a large area for tourists behind a rail, and the area for worshippers in front. The carpet was marked off in spaces for people to kneel down to pray.
Alison took a series of mosque and church ceilings on our trip by putting the camera on the floor and using the self-timer. This is inside the Blue Mosque.
Generally, only worshippers wash their feet before entering the mosque, but everyone has to remove his or her shoes. There are always shelves inside for parking your shoes - at one mosque we visited, there were little "take the key" lockers. The Blue Mosque had plastic bag dispensers at the entrance, so you could carry your shoes with you (and plastic bag recycling bins at the exit). Here we are putting our shoes back on.
Our next stop was the Great Palace Mosaic Museum, located right off of the Arasta Bazaar, which we shopped at several times. The museum was almost empty of visitors and the mosaics are great. They were from a court dating back to the 6th century, discovered by archeologists starting in the 1930s.
They are displayed mostly on the floor, and you walk around on an elevated catwalk.
The details are very striking, and the pictures are hardly generic.
The museum had a great edutoy - a kind of sticker-by-numbers mosaic book. The kids liked it a lot until each decided that letting them each pick the mosaic they wanted to do wasn't fair; yes, letting them have the ones they want: NOT FAIR.
On the way back from the mosaic museum we got another great look at the Blue Mosque.
