I decided to go back and do the Istanbul posts so there’s some semblance of a timeline to these stories. It would be nice to actually post them in order of when we visited the various places, but I don’t feel like figuring that out right now. You would think I’d be able to tell when we went where based on the time/date stamp on my photos, wouldn’t you? Well, I couldn’t figure out why when I would upload photos at the end of the day that some would appear in a file dated that day and the other half on the previous day. Until I realized that the small camera I use was still set to California time so any photos taken before midnight pacific time (pretty much any morning photos in Turkey) would be dated the day before while the rest would be filed under the correct date. So I’ve been having to go through and figure out if the photos of old architecture and arched ceilings belong with this particular historic site or that particular site. They all start to look the same after a while . . .
Today’s story takes place at Chora Church. Now you probably thought like I did that this place was pronounced “chore-ah” church, huh? In all our travel planning I kept pronouncing it that way in my head only to find out the day we visited that it’s actually pronounced “Korea” church. I don’t know why it’s named like a country in Asia and just because it makes more sense to me, I continue to call it “chor-ah” in my head.
These were the only two photos I got of the outside. I wasn’t really focused on the exterior because the reason the guidebooks tell you to come here is all on the inside.
“Hello, happy family!” is what is what many of the carpet salesmen/restaurant hosts/people selling crap would call out as our big caravan would ramble down the street. Thankfully most of the time it was true.
Something that is pretty nifty: the photo on wikipedia is only a little bit better than mine. Well, theirs is centered, right side up, and has better color, but you can tell we were in the same place . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Istanbul_Chora_Church_01.jpg
So “korea” church is famous for its mosaics. This dome is painted, not a mosaic, but still cool. I guessed it was Mary and baby Jesus surrounded by the 12 disciples because anytime you’re in a church and there are 12 people, it’s usually the disciples, but these “people” all have wings and holy halos, so they are probably angels.
Of course there’s a cat. A very friendly cat. Caleb, for all his love of cats was a little nervous about petting it. When we first got to Turkey he wanted to pet all the cats, even the mangy, weepy-eyed, possessed looking ones and I might have said something like, “You can’t pet the cat because if the cat nips at you we’ll have to take you to the hospital in case it has rabies and then you’ll have to get some shots.” I might need to dial that back a bit because he was pretty jumpy and flinchy around it.
Carter was petting it and it was purring and nudging his head against his hand trying to get him to scratch behind its ears.
Here’s what this church is famous for: mosaics of all these different scenes from Jesus’ life. You can see how big they are compared to Josh in the corner of the photo.
Up close. I don’t know what they used for the gold, but it was glittery. It was amazing how the picture was made up of all these little bitty square pieces laid out perfectly.
Close up of the pieces that make up the big picture. This is part of Jesus’ robe from a different mosaic.
The framed marble panels on the wall behind us are made from pieces that were sliced and then opened up side by side to form a mirror image of the grain.
There were mosaics all over the walls and ceilings. I would have liked to see them up close because that is when I was really able to appreciate the detail and the work that went into creating them.
This mosaic was pretty easy to figure out. Jesus’ first miracle where he turns the water into wine.
