The Blue Mosque

It's hard to know where to start in Istanbul - everywhere you look there seems to be a photograph.  It's very different to Ireland (Ed: naturally enough) - and of course it is the city where East meets West.  Asia on the east bank of the Bosphorus, Europe on the west bank.

This was the view from our hotel window - well, I call it a hotel, it was small, cheap and OK for a day or two but not a place you'd want to take anyone you cared about.

Blue Mosque, 1993

In the morning we were woken up at some ungodly hour by the call to prayer.  It's a tough life, being a follower of Islam.  Dreamy colours in the old Kodachrome, though, wouldn't you agree?

This is my colleague Martin posing in front of the Blue Mosque, which gives a better view of the scale and general splendour of the building.  Note the yellow 'Taksi' which is just creeping in there in the foreground - it seemed like there were millions of them in this city.

Lovely architecture

And this is yours truly standing at the entrance:

Moi, at the entrance to the Blue Mosque

You may notice I actually had some hair in 1993.  We did go inside - taking our shoes off of course.  In those days I could actually get my shoes off, and more importantly back on again without help.  Nowadays I'm not sure I'd bother...