Sultanahmet

First day with the oğrenciler, a typically amazing group of Hoyas of boundless energy and good attitude. We started once again at the Sultanahmet tram stop, this time angling down to the left towards the great Ayasofya (Hagia Sofia) herself. While the group wandered the upper galleries, tuned to our guide through headsets, picking angels out in the mosaics, Booker perched on a 1,500 year old pillar to get this shot of the Sultanahmet Cami (Blue Mosque) across the way.

I have been in many spaces invoking the sacred and seen many a spire vaulting towards the heavens. But the Blue Mosque in the golden sunlight, with a hazy penumbra shimmering off its domes, looks like Paradise itself.