Istanbul

Istanbul, our final destination, was a Greek city on the strategic waterway between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Roman emperor Constantine made it his capitol in 330 and established the city of Constantinople, which survived for 1100 years as the capitol of the Byzantine empire. The Ottomans ruled from 1453 to 1923, when Ataturk moved the capitol of the new country of Turkey to Ankara. The historic heart of Istanbul is the home of Hagia Sophia (founded as a church in 537, converted to a mosque, now a museum), the Sultanahmet ("Blue") mosque, and the Suleymaniye mosque.