Our next stop was the huge mosque next to Aya Sofya. Locals call it the Sultanahmet Mosque because it was financed by Sultan Ahmet I, and because the area surrounding it is also known as Sultanahmet. But guidebooks tend to call it the Blue Mosque because of the wealth of blue tiles that cover the interior.
Unfortunately, we hit the mosque just as prayer services were about to start. So, we broke for lunch at the Dervish Café and Restaurant behind Aya Sofya to wait it out.
There are six minarets around the Blue Mosque. (By comparison, Aya Sofya has four.) At the time it was built, only one other mosque in the world had six minarets, and it was in Islam's holiest city, Mecca. Not to be outdone, Mecca's clergy built a seventh minaret at Mecca.
This is the inner courtyard. The old ablution fountain shown here is purely for decoration now. Today, the real ablutions happen to the right of the steps before the inner courtyard.
Women must cover their hair, shoulders and knees before they are allowed inside the mosque.
The architecture is similar to Aya Sofya (domes upon domes). But since it was built 11 centuries afterward, they made many improvements. First, they added lots of windows. Aya Sofya's walls could not afford the strain that windows would have made. Second, there are no exterior buttresses to clutter the courtyard. Instead, the weight is distributed almost entirely to just four "elephant foot" columns.
No shoes allowed. You carried them with you in a little plastic bag.Behind me is the men's worshiping area. The women worship at the back of the mosque behind a screen, or upstairs. There is a practical reason for keeping men and women separate. The positions one must make to properly worship Allah are quite suggestive. Muslims don't want to be having any impure thoughts during prayers.