The Lark - A geek blog

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque is a historic mosque located in Istanbul , Turkey . A popular tourist site, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque continues to function as a mosque today; men still kneel in prayer on the mosque's lush red carpet after the call to prayer. The Blue Mosque, as it is popularly known, was constructed between 1609 and 1616 during the rule of Ahmed I . Its Külliye contains Ahmed's tomb, a madrasah and a hospice. Hand-painted blue tiles adorn the mosque’s interior walls, and at night the mosque is bathed in blue as lights frame the mosque’s five main domes, six minarets and eight secondary domes. It sits next to the Hagia Sophia , another popular tourist site. The Sultan Ahmed Mosque has five main domes, six minarets , and eight secondary domes. The design is the culmination of two centuries of Ottoman mosque development. It incorporates some Byzantine Christian elements of the neighboring Hagia Sophia with traditional Islamic architecture and is considered to b...

The Galata Tower — called Christea Turris (the Tower of Christ in Latin ) by the Genoese — is a medieval stone tower in the Galata / Karaköy quarter of Istanbul , Turkey , just to the north of the Golden Horn 's junction with the Bosphorus . One of the city's most striking landmarks, it is a high, cone-capped cylinder that dominates the skyline and offers a panoramic vista of Istanbul's historic peninsula and its environs. The nine-story tower is 66.90 m (219.5 ft) (62.59 m (205.3 ft) without the ornament on top, 51.65 m (169.5 ft) at the observation deck), and was the city's tallest structure when it was built. The elevation at ground level is 35 m (115 ft) above sea-level. The tower has an external diameter of 16.45 m (54.0 ft) at the base, an inside diameter of 8.95 m (29.4 ft), and walls that are 3.75 m (12.3 ft) thick. There is a restaurant and café on its upper floors which command a magnificent view of Istanbul and the Bosphorus. Also located on the ...