Travel picture of the day...06/12/07

Hagia Sophia Interior

This was our first stop on our first full day in Istanbul. This building just smells of history going back more than 1400 years when it was a Byzantine church, later becoming a Catholic cathedral, then a mosque before Turkey's father of the modern republic, Ataturk, transformed this building into a museum.

I first learned about the Hagia Sophia in art history class and stepping into this building was like being transported back into several periods in our humanity's ancient past.

Photo taken in November 2005.