TURKEY
Country Overview:
“Tasty treats, a tumultuous economy, and a love for street food”
I flew to Istanbul, Turkey from Sanya, China on Aug. 18, 2020. At the time, it was one of only several countries open to Americans that didn’t have any quarantine requirements. I spent close to 3 months exploring the city, learning the culture, and eating my way through this culinary paradise. I left in late October to fly to Serbia and although my time in Turkey was shorter than I would have liked, I will never forget the people, places, or food that made Turkey a must-see destination for any traveler.
Church of St. Anthony of Padua & Pera Museum
First 3 pictures are of St. Anthony of Padua Church, which is the largest Roman Catholic Church in Istanbul, Turkey.
The church is considered a minor basilica and is run by Italian priests. In case anyone is curious:
Saturday Mass is in Italian and begins at 19:00
Sunday Mass is 9:30 in Polish, 10:00 in English and 17:00 in Turkish
Tuesday Mass is in Turkish and begins at 11:00
Weekday Masses are in English at 8:00
Fun Fact: Pope John XXIII preached in this church for 10 years, when he was the Vatican's ambassador to Turkey before being elected as pope. He is known in Turkey as ”The Turkish Pope" because of his fluent Turkish and his public adoration for Turkey and the city of Istanbul.
The other pictures are from Pera Museum, which was super cool. My favorite exhibition was “Constructing A Dream” which focused on the Albanian government’s attempts to build a propaganda narrative for the people to achieve socialist realism. I love propaganda art and I thought the idea of “new person” had similar parallels with China’s style of people in their propaganda posters.
The last picture in the bottom right is an exhibit made of sand. Behind it was a video of the artist sweeping up a copy of the sand installation in her home. I don’t really understand why, maybe to symbolize that art is fleeting, but I can only imagine how long it took her to make it. For 25 Lira, if you’ve got a free afternoon in Istanbul, I recommend checking out Pera Museum.
Hagia Sophia // Istanbul
Hagia Sophia was never really on my bucket list of things to see, but hey, when in Turkey…
Hagia Sophia was built in 537 as the patriarchal cathedral of the imperial capital of Constantinople, it was the largest Christian church of the eastern Roman Empire and the Eastern Orthodox Church. In 1453, after the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire, it was converted into a mosque. In 1935 the secular Turkish Republic established it as a museum. In 2020, it re-opened as a mosque.
It was built by the eastern Roman emperor Justinian I as the Christian cathedral of Constantinople for the state church of the Roman Empire between 532 and 537, the church was then the world's largest interior space and among the first to employ a fully pendentive dome.