Hagia Sophia

Let your spirit wander through marble halls, beneath the great dome of this ancient place of worship. The Hagia Sophia is one of the greatest surviving examples of Byzantine architecture. The location and current building have gone through several different phases of construction and worship; as a pagan church, a christian church, a mosque, and now a museum. The current building was originally constructed as a church between 532 and 537 A.D. After the Ottoman Turks conquered Istanbul in 1453, the Hagia Sophia was converted into a Mosque. In 1935, the first Turkish President and founder of the Republic of Turkey, transformed the building into a museum.