Here's the view low view from our hotel room at 3a.m. (the first round of jet lag). Kind of made me think of a backlot. Curvy streets so you can't see far, everything in its place.



Here's the daytime view if we looked a bit up instead of down at the street:



The Sultan Ahmed Mosque, better known to westerners as the Blue Mosque.

Sultan Ahmed Mosque (aka Blue Mosque, aka Sultanahmet Camii)


Rüstem Pasha Mosque (aka Rüstempaşa Camii)

A quick selection of other photos


My kokareç ekmek. The filling is a spicy, finely chopped, sheep intestine. It was good.


For Lisa. This guy was for sale at a stall at the Spice Market. No, he's not food, a section of the market is actually a pet section with cats, dogs, birds, rabbits, and leeches (for medicinal purposes). Though I'm not sure why anybody would ever buy a cat or dog since I'd think you'd just take in one of the unlimited supply of unowned ones just walking around town where they're treated kind of like communal pets.


The main interior area of the Hagia Sophia. The two things that boggle my mind about this structure is a) this is a sixth century structure, it would be a thousand years before other domes began to surpass it; and b) the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque are literally across the street from each other. I don't know why it amuses me to have two of the greatest religious structures in the world crammed together like that.


It was market day in the old Jewish Quarter when we walked through on the way to visit the Patriarchate (the Vatican of the Orthodox Church). These days the quarter has a high density of Roma, but I have no idea if any of the people in this photo are Roma.


Who says religion doesn't provide usable guidelines for everyday life?



Dolmabahçe Palace. It is really difficult to give the scale of this building from the outside. This palace replaced the Orientalist Topkapi Palace in the 19th Century in a nod towards modernism and copying the more powerful European empires. It is tacky beyond all belief but worth visiting just for seeing the main ceremonial hall that makes up the middle portion of the building you see here and is big enough to accommodate almost 3,000 people. Unfortunately no photography is allowed inside (and you have to wear plastic booties over your shoes just to go inside).


An exterior view of the Hagia Sophia. Again, if I turned 180 degrees I'd be looking right at the Sultan Ahmed Mosque.