We visited the stunning city of Istanbul back in June this year. I loved the city and would happily go back tomorrow. The highlight for me was the amazing architecture of its many mosques.
The new mosque was quite near our hotel, and on the main thoroughfare down near the waterfront, so we passed it many times. As such I managed to capture quite a few shots of it at different times of the day.
The beauty and craftmanship was quite incredible. To be fair, I could easily say that about all of the mosques we visited in Istanbul.
The scale of the building was very impressive, especially when you consider its age.
Some of the detail in the build was spectacular, like these pillars above. I've no idea how they get that affect. And just look at that stunning painted ceiling above.
The sad thing is that we never quite timed our visit, so we never actually got to go inside the main hall of the mosque - just the enclosure to the side. We were always going somewhere else and when we passed it would inevitably but shut for visitors (mostly due to prayer times).
One of the very memorable aspects of Istanbul was the call to prayer. There were so many mosques around that you would hear the call to prayer wherever you were, and from multiple mosques at the same time. It was something I'd never heard before, and really something to experience.
I liked how when walking along the street it would just sort of emerge, and then dominate the scene.
Although we passed it many times, I just couldnt help myself and took pics of it every time. The beauty was so impressive.
It looked like there was some maintenance work going on in the courtyard to the side while we were there, which is great to see. Its important that buildings like this are preserved for future generations.
This mosque was right next to the Egyptian Bazar, and between them they were drawing in a lot of visitors, so it was fairly busy all day.
With it sitting right down by the water, it stood out as one of the dominant landmarks in the old town. That is it just above the boats in the pic above (just left of middle). The other large mosque you can see there on the right is the mosque of Suleyman the Magnificent (which is also a fantastic place to visit).
It really was a quite beautiful and I'd simply love to go back and see it and the city again.