HX Report
Irishman in the Middle East
Hagia Sophia/Ayasofya
In MB’s last post, he challenged followers to identify the church in the pic that he posted. Blogger Tina (Travels & Trifles blog) thought it was the Ayasofya in Istanbul which is top of her bucket list to visit. But she was incorrect! MB encouraged her to go visit, however, as MB has done on a number of occasions. So, to whet Tina’s appetite before she travels, MB offers one of his Hagia Sophia (English) (Ayasofya in Turkish) pics below.
FROM WIKIPEDIA:
From the date of its construction’s completion in 537 until 1453, it served as an Eastern Orthodox cathedral and the seat of the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, except between 1204 and 1261, when it was converted by the Fourth Crusaders to a Roman Catholic cathedral under the Latin Empire. The building was later converted into an Ottoman mosque from 29 May 1453 until 1931. It was then secularized and opened as a museum on 1 February 1935. It remained the world’s largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years, until Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520.
HX Report 