Tour 6

(09h00 – 17h30) After transfer from the hotel we start our discovery of Istanbul with the favourites of this 2600 year old city. Our tour includes the St-Sophia Church (*), the Topkapi Palace (**) and the Blue Mosque (***).

(*) The St-Sophia Church (Closed on Mondays) (The church of Holy Wisdom) is undoubtedly one of the greatest buildings in the world, built by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian to surpass every other building ever erected to the glory of God and to proclaim forever the great­ness of the Empire. In an effort to restore the greatness of the Roman Empire, Justinian adorned it with gold mosaics and the most precious marbles from all parts of his empire. It took 10,000 worker­s and five years to turn it into one of the great architec­tural wonders of Byzantine architecture both in splendour and in size. St-Sophia was early Christendom's biggest church and today only St-Paul's of London, St-Peter's of Rome and the Milan Cathedral surpass it in size. Its 52 m high dome with 40 windows was the lar­gest in the world for a thousand years. After the conquest of the city in 1453 Mehmet the Conqueror transformed it into a mosque and in 1934 Atatürk turned it into a museum.

(**) Topkapi palace (closed on Tuesdays) is spread over the promontory called the Seraglio Point and overlooks the Bosporus, the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara. This legendary maze of buildings was the residence of the Ottoman sultans and the ad­ministrative heart of the Empire for almost 400 years. It was from within these walls that powerful armies were sent into Europe and Asia, where great and despicable sultans ruled, others imprisoned, driven mad, or slain. Today, the corridors and paths are empty of the people who inhabited them, but the buil­dings remain, redolent of history containing the finest treasures and mystic memories of the Ottomans.

(***) The Sultan Ahmet, better known as the Blue Mosque, is a masterpiece of Ottoman architecture built in the early 17th century under the reign of Sultan Ahmet I and is renowned for its slender minarets and imposing dome rising above the square. Its harmonious and monumental propor­tions and the interior decorated with blue Iznik tiles -hence the mosque’s colloquial name- makes it the most splendid mosque in the city.

After the sightseeing lunch will be served in a Turkish restaurant serving daily prepared Ottoman & Turkish cuisine.

After lunch we continue our discovery of Istanbul with the Grand Bazaar – which is said to be the biggest covered bazaar in the world of which the origins go back to the Byzantine period.

COSTING
Per person: 99.- €