Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
home to a row of faux-Ottoman houses functioning as a hotel as well as an undoubtedly
authentic restored Byzantine cistern that now operates as the hotel restaurant.
In the 1980s the Turkish Touring & Auto-mobile Association (Turing) acquired a row
of buildings on this street and decided to demolish most of them to build nine re- creations
of the prim Ottoman-style houses that had occupied the site in the previous two centuries.
What ensued was a vitriolic battle played out on the pages of İstanbul's newspapers, with
some experts arguing that the city would be left with a Disney-style architectural theme
park rather than a legitimate exercise in conservation architecture. Turing eventually got
the go-ahead (after the intervention of the Turkish president no less) and in time opened
all of the re-created buildings as Ayasofya Konakları, one of the first boutique heritage
hotels in the city. Conservation theory aside, the street is particularly picturesque and
worth a view.
CAFERAĞA
MEDRESESI
OFFLINE MAP
| HISTORIC BUILDING
GOOGLE MAP
lovely little building tucked away in the shadows of Aya Sofya was designed by Sinan on
the orders of Cafer Ağa, Süleyman the Magnificent's chief black eunuch. Built in 1560 as
a school, it is now home to a cultural organisation teaching and promoting traditional
Turkish handicrafts. It has a pleasant
lokanta
(eatery serving ready0made food;
CLICK HERE
) and
çay bahçesi
(tea garden).
Küçük Ayasofya
| MOSQUE
LITTLE AYA SOFYA
OFFLINE MAP
GOOGLE MAP
(Küçük Aya Sofya Camii, SS Sergius & Bacchus Church; Küçük Ayasofya Caddesi; Sultanahmet, Çem-
berlitaş)
Justinian and his wife Theodora built this little church sometime between 527 and
536, just before Justinian built Aya Sofya. You can still see their monogram worked into
some of the frilly white capitals. Recently restored, the building is one of the most beauti-
ful Byzantine structures in the city.
Named after Sergius and Bacchus, the two patron saints of Christians in the Roman
army, it has been known as Little (
Küçük
in Turkish) Aya Sofya for much of its existence.
The building's dome is architecturally noteworthy and its plan - an irregular octagon - is
