Istanbul: Places
Photos & Words: Salina Christmas

The Blue Mosque. Otherwise known as the Sultanahmet Mosque.

You get a better landscape view of the mosque, the Hippodrome and Hagia Sophia from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art. Entrance fee to the museum: YTL10.

There are a few Blue Mosques; this one got its nickname from the Iznik tiles. The architect was Mehmet Aga. It opened between 1616 and 1617.

There was an uproar over the six minarets — in those days, only the mosque in Mecca could have six minarets. To appease his critics, Sultan Ahmet I paid for a seventh minaret for the Meccan mosque.