More Istanbul

Istanbul's population is roughly 20 million people which is about the same size as Beijing.  Another comparison would be that New York, the state not NYC, has about 20 million people.
The blend of all the sounds from so many people is surprisingly easy on the ear.  I wonder if the sounds are softened ( in relative terms ) due to the hilly topography, being surrounded and split by so much water, or a lack of skyscrapers.  At any rate, it was loud but not like I recall NYC.

We went to Istanbul for a family reunion; the family that my father's sister married into makes me ever so slightly familialy attached and we were thoroughly included.  Gastronomic tours, museum tours, a trip on the Bosphorus, group meals and various walks through different parts of the city.

The Hagia Sophia is amazing and splendid and the architectural wonder of its time due to the immensity of the domed ceiling and so few pillars to hold it all up.  It's beuatiful and awe inspiring and though I'd seen photos of it before visiting that is nothing compared to reality.  The tile mosaics are wondrous and many are hidden under a layer of plaster since Muslims don't allow any images of humans or animals and this used to be a mosque.

We also visited the Chora which is the Byzantine version of Christianity.  Small and tucked into a residential area in the western part of Istanbul the tile mosaics are from a later period than the Hagia Sophia and the detail that was then possible is a defining factor.  The Byzantine era mosaics show Mary being given to Joseph and the subsequent dismay when, though Joseph has been away from home traveling for many months, she knows that she is pregnant.  So many lovely detailed mosaics cover many of the walls and ceilings.  The artists were still learning depth perception so some of the mosaics make me look twice to figure out what is amiss.

The gift shop has books in many languages and one is about the Chora and the Hagia Sophia.  I took a photo of the ISBN so I can try to borrow it from the library.

There is so much I didn't see that would require another visit.  And then I would repeat the Gastronomic tour with Megan!