between 9:00 am - 13:00 pm (20 Sept. and 24 Sept.)

HALF DAY SHORT CITY TOUR (Hipodrome, Blue Mosque, St.Sophia Grand Bazaar)

The short city tour will take place between 2:00pm and 5:30pm after the workshop sessions and lunch. During this tour you will have a chance to enjoy some of the historical peninsula and to buy traditional Turkish souvenirs.

Sultanahmet Square, or the Hipodrome, was commisioned by Roman Emperor Septimius Severius at the end of 2nd century. Hipodrome was later extended by Great Constantin. In the long, east side of the U-shaped hipodrome, there used to be an emperor lodge in the balcony where there were 4 bronze horses. In the center, there used to be a shallow wall which divides the sand covered hipodrome field into two, around which cars raced. Over this wall were placed the monuments brought from many parts of the empire as well as statues of horses.

Sultanahmet Mosque (The Blue Mosque), the only mosque in Turkey with six minarets, was commissioned between 1609 and 1616 by Sultan Ahmet the First on the square with the same name in Istanbul. Its architect is Sedefkar Mehmet Aga. The mosque section has dimension of 64x72. Its central dome has a diameter of 33.4m and a height of 43m and is 2.6m greater than that of St. Sophia. The interior of the mosque is illuminated by 260 windows. Since it is beautifully adorned by blue, green and white encaustics, it was named by the Europeans as the "Blue Mosque". The inscriptions on the mosque are made by Seyyid Kasim Gubari of Diyarbakir. With the surrounding buildings it constitues a complex.

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.

Grand Bazaar (Kapalicarsi) is a great bazaar near Nuri Osmaniye and Beyazid Mosques and Mahmutpasa Bazaar, and is made up of various shops constituting a street sheltered by roofs and domes. Though not very regularly shaped, it holds an area of about 31 thousand square meters. It has hundreds of domes which are covered with lead and windows. The nucleus of Kapalicarsi is a Byzantine building which is today called Old Bedesten. The section of the covered bazaar where valuables and jewellery are bought and sold was commissioned by Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror and the main great bazaar itself was commissioned during Kanuni Sultan Suleyman, on a wooden basis. Kapalicarsi managed to claim its present look within 250 years. The major sections of Kapalicarsi are Inner Bedesten (antiquity and jewelery as well as silver), Sandal Bedesten, Paper and Books section (Sahaflar), and so many gold adn carpet shops all around.

39 Euro per person.