The Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

Thursday, 19 August 2010. Following our visit to the Blue Mosque we come out of the courtyard through an archway and across the way we see our next port of call.

This is the Hagia Sophia or Sancta Sophia. Not St Sophia. In this case sophia is the phonetic spelling for the Greek word for wisdom. The full name of the church is Church of the Holy Wisdom of God.

We are in James Bond territory. In the 1963 film From Russia With Love this is the church that Bond waits in for Tania, the Russian agent to bring him the plans of the Russian Embassy. A Bulgar agent gets to the plans first, but Spectre assassin, Grant kills him and a bewildered Bond takes the plans from his body.

In the film a Guide points out this huge marble jar to some tourists.

Bond has been waiting for Tania from the dark of the side passages underneath the balcony. There are some low wooden stages with wooden railings and I stepped up on one of those to take photos of the main floorspace. Although they weren't roped off and there were no warning notices this turned out to be against the rules. Unfortunately the official who was trying to get me off was standing behind me and instead of calling out, just kept tapping on the railing. I never even heard him and it wasn't until Fran called out that I turned round.

This is an extremely old and important place. It was first built in 360 AD by the Romans and the foundations of that early building are on display today. This is the third basilica started only a few days after the destruction of its predecessor. This was in the year 532. Until the Basilica of Seville in Spain was built in 1534 it was the largest basilica in the world. Think about that - it was the largest cathedral or basilica in the world for a thousand years! It includes some of the columns from the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the World at Ephesus.

The balcony is reached today by what was described as a "spiral staircase" but turned out to be a rectangular spiral ramp that had been designed to allow baggage-laden mules to reach the upper floor. No doubt the Sultans' wives would not trouble themselves to walk either! Here Fran is demonstrating how out of breath she was...

The view from the balcony is well worth the climb. We were told that the scaffolding is permanent. It just moves about a bit. With the successful invasion by Ottoman forces in the year 1453, the church was converted to a mosque.

Images of saints, apostles, and angels were either destroyed of plastered over. The removal of this plaster following the building's subsequent conversion to a museum in 1935 revealed some damage to underlying artwork, which was made worse by damp conditions due to leaks in the roof and rising damp from below.

As a museum the basilica now displays both Christian paintings and Muslim calligraphy.

There are several fine mosaics with gold and precious stones. This one shows the infant Christ held by the Virgin Mary flanked by Emperor Constantine offering a model of the city of Constantinople and Justinian, the builder of the Hagia Sophia, offering a model of the basilica. It was warm. I melted into the shadows at the back of the basilica and kept a careful watch for Bulgar agents and assassins...

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St Marks Square, Venice

Sunday, 3 May 2009. I've already described how we got to Venice, so in this entry we'll have a look at St Marks Square and in particular the exterior of the cathedral itself.

At the waterfront to the west of St Mark's Square are several ranks of Venice's famous gondolas. There are many other places to find a gondola, but from here you have the best chance of being guided underneath the Bridge of Sighs. Hence, the gondolas here may not be the cheapest to ride.

The Doges Palace. Doge is the Italian equivalent of Duke and the Duke of Venice was also the Magistrate, hence the judicial hearings were heard in the palace. It was largely constructed from 1309 to 1424 and following a fire in 1574 was reconstructed in the original style.

St Mark's is the only "square" in Venice. All the other spaces are called a "campi" rather than a "piazza". It had its origins in the 800s but only reached its present shape and size in 1177 when waterways, including a dock that separated it from the Doges Palace, were filled in.

The bell tower is 98.6 meters tall, and separated from the basilica. It has an arched belfry, housing five bells.

The belfry is topped by a cube, with walking lions and the female representation of Venice. It is capped by a pyramid with a golden weathervane of the archangel Gabriel. It reached its present form in 1514 although it is a reconstruction, completed in 1912 after the collapse of 1902.

The first thing that strikes you when you look at any cathedral and stop to think about it is how long it must have taken to build it. In fact that's a source of frustration for many people in Barcelona, where Gaudi's cathedral, La Sagrada Familia has been coming together slowly since 1882 and it is not due to be completed until 2026. Gaudi shrugged this off with the comment "My client is not in a rush..." I quite like the idea that every time I go to Barcelona there is something new to find. And when you think about it, it really makes no difference whether that's because it wasn't actually there to be found the last time, or whether there was just so much to take in that you missed it. With any large cathedral there is always something new to find and see when you visit.

Above the central arch with the fabulous mosaic that we'll look at in a minute, there are four horses cast in bronze in Roman times. The Horses of Saint Mark were part of a Ben-Hur type racing chariot statue. They were looted from Constantinople, modern day Istanbul, around 1204 by Venetian forces in the 4th Crusade.

I've mentioned them before, because in 1797, Napoleon stole the horses for the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, in Paris. They were returned in 1815 after Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. In the 1980s damage from air pollution forced their replacement with exact replicas. The originals are displayed inside - something else I have yet to see...

The mosaics in the arches of St Marks are worth a look with real gold having been used in the making. And let's tear ourselves away from the cathedral for a moment to spare a glance around the rest of St Marks Square. I've been lucky in that I've never been there when it has flooded. The drains of the square apparently lead straight to the Grand Canal and whilst it works perfectly at most times, when the level of the Lagoon rises because of storm surges, the channels of the drains work both ways... St Marks Square is the lowest part of Venice.

I have already mentioned the Doges Palace. So let's look to the other side of the cathedral, where we find the clock tower. The tower is an imposing building with the Venetian winged lion standing out against a blue and white chequerboard design at the top of the façade, on a single storey tower. On top is a bell with two giant blackened bronze figures who strike the bell on the hour.

Right! It's time to plunge into the maze of streets and see where we end up!

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