June 16th, 2007 Saturday, between 9:00 am and 1:00 pm
Half Day Tour (Hagia Sophia Church, Topkapi Palace, Underground Cistern)

Hagia Sophia Church is one of the most extraordinary buildings in the history of architecture and from the Golden Age of Byzantium. It played such an important role in Byzantine Empire as well as in Ottoman Empire as a mosque.The church was completed in 537 by Emperor Justinian I. It was completed only in 5 years. Emperor Justinian I was a very strong believer of Christianity and he wanted to use the church as a means for enlarging the scope of Christianity. This church served as the heart of the empire, all coronation and major baptism ceremonies took place here. When Turks conquered Istanbul in 1453, the first thing Mehmed "the Conqueror" did was to order the conversion of the church into a mosque. From then on, the Church served as a great mosque, with four minarets added in different periods. Hagia Sophia served as a mosque until Mustafa Kemal Ataturk ordered the conversion of the mosque into a museum. He believed that it was a world heritage and people could come and see it. Therefore, in 1940s, it was reopened as a museum.

Topkapi Palace was more than just the private residence of the Sultan and his court. When Sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople in 1453, he found the palaces of the Byzantine Emperors in such ruins as to be uninhabitable. He constructed "The Old Palace". A few years later, he decided to have his palace on the N side of the First Hill which had been the acropolis of the ancient Byzantium. He constructed a massive wall surrounding the area along the Sea of Marmara to the Golden Horn. This took place during the period 1459-65 after the Sultan left the former palace to women of his father's harem. Topkapi Palace continued to be the principal residence for four centuries until in 1853, Sultan Abdul Mecid I moved into the new palace of Dolmabahce on the Bosphorus. The old palace was used as house for the women of the departed sultans and their servants until the Harem was officially disbanded in 1909. In 1924, Topkapi Palace was converted to a museum with the order of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The final step was the opening of the Harem to the public in 1960.

Underground Cistern was known in Byzantium as "Basilica Cistern" because it lay beneath the Stoa Basilica, the great public square on the First Hill. The Basilica Cistern was built by Justinian I after the bloody Nika Revolt in 532, probably as an enlargement of an earlier cistern which was constructed by Constantine the Great. During the Byzantium Period, it was used as a reservoir for water storage for the Great Palace and other buildings in the First Hill. During the Ottoman Period, the water was used for Topkapi Palace and watering the gardens of it. However the cistern had its brighest days during the Byzantium Period.

50 Euro per person.