It’s been a long time since I celebrated my birthday abroad – actually it’s 3 years back, in 2019 when I was in Singapore. I actually wanted to make this a tradition to give myself a treat, but unfortunately I couldn’t realize this due to Covid-19. But that´s okay, the important thing is to be happy wherever you are, right? <3
However, I was able to celebrate my birthday in Istanbul this year, and this alongside one of my closest friends. Such a pleasure 😊♥️
We started the day with brunch at Mesopotamian Terrace Restaurant. It is a place located at the terrace, with the views of Ayasofia and the Blue Mosque, and it has been the “Travelers’ Choice for several years in Tripadvisor, and I’d read many good reviews, so we gave it a try. However we were not that surprised. The food was not that tasty, maybe we prefer more flavours, but here are some pictures of our brunch and the views.
Next, we went to Hagia Sophia mosque for a guided tour. Hagia Sophia, meaning Holy Wisdom in Greek, is the biggest Byzantian monument in Istanbul. There have been other buildings at the very same place, but after a fire accident, the current building was built – in 532-537 CE, which makes it a very old building. It was originally a church, but after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, when the Ottoman Empire captured Constantinople, they converted the town to Istanbul, and also made several places muslim, including Hagia Sophia. Today it’s used as a mosque, but is also visited by many tourists who observe the splendid architecture, christian mosaics and works that are found inside the mosque. However, the upper gallery and dome is closed for everyone today, so we were not able to that much, sadly. But Hagia Sophia is still special.
We took a moment to sit down and feel the atmosphere. A is the kind of person, who always want to understand other cultures and religions, and she therefore also likes to sit in religious places for a moment to feel the atmosphere and the divine. I am a both spiritual and religious person, and therefore enjoys to feel the divinity in places. So sitting in Hagia Sophia for a moment was actually beautiful. We continued this practice throughout the trip whenever we went to a mosque 😌
Hereafter we went to Cistern of Philoxenos (Binbirdirek Cistern), a man-made subterrean reservoir, not far away from Hagia Sophia. There is no data of how the cistern actually is, but we know that it was restored in the 6th century, as was in use till the Fall of Constantinople, where the cistern fell into disuse for about 300 years. It was then rediscovered in thr 17th century, under the construction of Fazil Pasha’s palace on the same site. The cistern can hold 40.000 litres of water, and there are 244 columns made of marble from Marmara Island.
It is quite impressive that it was possible to build such cisterns in ancient times. Indeed incredible.
