Blue Mosque – Sultan Ahmet Camii, Istanbul

It’s been 14 years since I last set foot inside the Blue Mosque, and I’ve been wanting to take Jasmin there for years.

It is a stunning architectural icon, looming over the Istanbul horizon for some five centuries. Inside it’s one giant room, with an incredible array of curves that somehow manage to support the massive main dome, all collapsing in on each other without actually collapsing… Brilliant! How they achieved that without the aid of CAD computer programs I’ll never know.

Featuring 200 stained glass windows and some seriously trippy fractal geometry tiles, you can’t help but notice the incredible detail that seems to explode out of every orifice.

Jasmin’s architectural eye was a bit non-plussed by the recent (200 year old) addition of wrought iron and ostrich egg chandeliers that were drilled in to the ceiling. And the stinky carpet.

“It smells like socks” was Jasmin’s opinion of one of the greatest buildings ever made.