One moment
Temples
Hagia Sophia
A temple people come back to · Istanbul, Turkey
Photo: Julien Maury · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
4.8★Rating
133,296Reviews
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The experience
Completed in 537 CE as a Byzantine cathedral designed by Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus, Hagia Sophia was for nearly a thousand years the largest interior space in the world. Converted to a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of 1453, it served as a museum from 1935 before being redesignated a mosque in 2020. Its vast dome, gold Byzantine mosaics and towering marble columns remain among the defining sights of Istanbul.
The single building where Byzantine and Ottoman Istanbul meet under one colossal dome.
byzantinemonumentalspiritualiconic
Where it is
Istanbul, Turkey · Sultanahmet, Fatih. Coordinates from the listing we sourced it from.
DirectionsWhat a membership adds.
Everything above is free: the name, the photo, the rating, the exact spot. What members get is the part you can't Google: the sourced insider tip for this place (what to order, when to go, what to skip), every day of your trips unlocked in full with the insider tip on every researched stop, and the concierge at full strength, answering with your own insider tips, no daily meter.
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