The Blue Mosque

We wake up at 6AM, as if we have no jet-lag. Tim is unstoppable and leaves the apartment with his camera, ready to shoot Istanbul in the golden hour.

Olga, Cleo and Zeno enjoy the extra space in bed and play until Tim is back and the restaurants are open for breakfast. It’s very bright, sunny and warm outside. So nice, after the long, dark and rainy Belgian winter!

We choose an authentic Turkish place and order half the breakfast menu. As everybody is hungry, it’s very quiet while we eat.

Fully recharged, we head to the Hagia Sophia. As all the streets are still empty, we are confident the lines won’t be too long. Boy we were wrong! At 9AM, the lines are already kilometres long. But no worries, the Blue Mosque is next door, and there, the line is fine, as it opens at 9:30 only. The 400 year old Ottoman Mosque is still functioning as we see people prayer next to the thousands tourists jammed inside taking pictures. The tiles show beautiful blue floral motifs.

The Mosaic museum is closed, but the Museum for Turkish and Islamic art is open and has some holy beard hairs of Mohammed on display, old Koran books and huge carpets.

We buy some lunch at the supermarket to eat in our apartment to ensure the children have some rest until the afternoon programme starts.