If you leave the Haghia Sophia or Aya Sofia and turn left, then at the corner left again you’re on your way to the Topkapı museum. However, if you’d turn left again after some 30 meters, you’d find there is – after a period of restoration – another big attraction: the türbeler (mausoleums) of a number of sultans. My advice: take that turn, you’ll find a couple of very well designed buildings (at least one by the greatest Turkish architect Sinan), with wonderful decorations, in some with “Iznik” tiles from the greatest period of tile making. I show the türbeler that could be visited at the time, a few others (those of Sultan Mustafa and Ibrahim) will be opened very shortly after I write this in late December 2009.

During a December 2009 holiday (my exif has “2008”, I keep making mistakes in setting my camera) I used a recently bought fish-eye lense, it causes some extreme distortions, but also allowed me to show spaces like I never could before.

I may be busy rearranging some pictures for a while.