Avi's Last First Blog!

Blue Mosque at Night

Today I started to visit the main tourist attractions in Istanbul, Turkey. My family and I found out a lot about the history of Turkey and discovered some amazing facts about what happened. One of the most outstanding examples of skillful architecture was the Blue Mosque which was built in 1616 and is one of the world’s finest mosques. It is a humongous temple for Islamic worship named after its giant colorful tiles. It has one large room with many stain glass windows, chandeliers, and wonderful tiles in geometric patterns on the walls. There is area farther to the back for female worship and a place in the front for male worship. In the Blue Mosque you are required to remove your shoes, the women must covers their heads with scarves, and you should only talk in hushed whispers. Because the women were brought to the back to worship it brings up some thoughts for me if Muslims felt that men are more important than women but I don’t know much about Muslim beliefs so I can’t be sure. I plan to find out later.

Another beautiful piece of architecture was the Underground Cistern, which was constructed in the sixth century A.D. for storing fresh drinking water when the city folk ran out. It is the size of two football fields. There are 336 pillars made from ancient buildings shooting up and a new platform to walk on so you don’t become wet. The Cistern used to have water twenty feet deep but now it’s only about a foot deep because the locals stopped using it; they also added fish for decoration.

Posted by Avi

Underground Cistern