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Spring Break in Istanbul!

We were all very eager to travel again, and were excited to visit a new country! The first day in Istanbul, we saw a ton of mosques, but only went inside one, and we walked around the big city, which included seeing the Grand Bazaar. Before we started our sight-seeing, we had lunch at a Turkish restaurant. The food was amazing! It was full of fragrant spices and robust flavor. After lunch we went to visit the Hagia Sophia.

The Hagia Sophia, a World Heritage Site, was built as a church under the Byzantine emperor Justinian I in 532–37 when Istanbul was called Constantinople. It was the largest church in the world for hundreds of years! The Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople in 1453 and changed its name to Istanbul and also converted the church into a mosque. In 1935, the Turkish president changed the mosque into a museum, only to have it turned back into a mosque in 2020! It was as pretty on the inside as it was on the outside!

The Grand Bazaar was full of souvenirs, spices, and fake jewelry. We got to walk through it and try a few of the local Turkish delicacies like a lemon-mint-eucalyptus tea and Turkish delight. It was a great first day in the vast city of Istanbul!

Hagia Sophia

Inside the Hagia Sophia:

Two marble jars were brought to Hagia Sophia from Pergamon (240 miles southwest of Istanbul) during the late 1500s. Each jar was carved from a single block of marble!
The Basilica Cistern (unfortunately closed since 2020 for renovation) is the largest of hundreds of ancient cisterns underneath Istanbul
We missed these sorts of sights!
Istanbul was full of stray cats which were generally well cared for by people outside of their homes or shops
Grand Bazaar, one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world
Turkish delight

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