When it was finished in 537, Hagia Sophia held the largest interior space anywhere on Earth — a dome so wide it seemed to float, ringed by forty windows. Emperor Justinian is said to have looked up and whispered that he had outdone Solomon. For nearly a thousand years it was the cathedral of Constantinople, then a mosque after 1453, with minarets added to its corners. The four-winged seraphim mosaics near the dome stayed covered for centuries, then reopened with the building as a museum in 1935. In 2020 it returned to use as a mosque.
Audio guide Istanbul
Tella is a free audio guide for any place on Earth. Here are 30 places in Istanbul worth a story. Open one on the map and hear it read aloud in English, or take the Android app on a walk and let it narrate whatever you pass.
Places worth a story
Sultan Ahmed Mosque
historic mosque located in Istanbul, Turkey, also known as Blue Mosque
When Sultan Ahmed I ordered its construction in 1609, the mosque's six minarets caused a scandal, because only the mosque in Mecca had that many. To quiet the criticism, Ahmed paid for a seventh minaret to be added to the holy mosque in Mecca itself. Inside, more than twenty thousand hand-painted Iznik tiles line the walls, their blue patterns giving the building its popular name. The mosque still functions as a place of worship today, with tourists entering through a separate door outside prayer times.
Topkapı Palace
palace museum in Istanbul, Turkey
For nearly four centuries, every Ottoman sultan ruled an empire from Topkapı Palace, but the building itself got its name almost by accident. It was called the New Palace until the 19th century, when people started referring to it by one of its gates — the Cannon Gate, or Topkapı. Inside, the business of empire happened in the Imperial Council, where the Grand Vizier met with state officials. When the court finally moved to Dolmabahçe in 1856, Topkapı kept the imperial treasury, library and mint.
Maiden's Tower
lighthouse at the southern entrance of the Bosphorus in Turkey
Walls of Constantinople
city walls of Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey)
Photo: Apaleutos25 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Hagia Irene
Byzantine church building in Istanbul, Turkey now a hall and museum
Hagia Irene is the oldest church building in Istanbul, and unlike almost every other Byzantine church in the city, it was never turned into a mosque. After the Ottoman conquest it became an arsenal, storing weapons and trophies well into the 1800s, which is exactly what preserved its original structure. Today it serves as a museum and concert hall, its bare interior prized for its remarkable acoustics. During the Istanbul Music Festival, audiences sit surrounded by over fifteen hundred years of unbroken history.
Photo: Ninara · CC BY 2.0
Little Hagia Sophia
former Greek Eastern Orthodox church in Istanbul converted to a mosque
Sokollu Mehmed Pasha I Mosque
mosque in İstanbul, Turkey
Obelisk of Theodosius
ancient Egyptian obelisk of Pharaoh Thutmose III re-erected in the Hippodrome of Constantinople (known today as At Meydanı or Sultanahmet Meydanı, in the modern city of Istanbul, Turkey) by the Roman emperor Theodosius I in the 4th century AD
This is the Obelisk of Theodosius, an Egyptian monument that’s been standing in Istanbul for sixteen centuries. Pharaoh Thutmose III raised it near Luxor around 1450 BC, and in 390 the Roman emperor Theodosius brought it to Constantinople to crown the Hippodrome’s spine. It arrived already ancient — older to Theodosius than he is to us. The pink granite shaft stands on marble reliefs showing the imperial family watching chariot races from the very spot where the obelisk still rises.
Photo: Apaleutos25 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Stories are written by an AI from public map and encyclopaedia data and may contain mistakes.