Then we got up the next morning we all had bread and tea as breakfast which we got

from Nigeria then went to prepare for our tour and took snacks along for the tour, not so
long, our tourist came and said he was taking us to the oldest building in Istanbul Turkey
THE HAGIA SOPHIA. Arriving at The Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya in Turkish) we met a man
who told us how the HAGIA SOPHIA was built he said it was originally built as a basilica
for the Greek Orthodox Christian Church. However, its function has changed several
times in the centuries since. Byzantine Emperor Constantius commissioned construction
of the first Hagia Sophia in 360 A.D. He further explained that it was formerly known as
THE CONSTANTINAOPLE naming it after onstantius’ father, Constantine I, the first ruler of
the Byzantine Empire. Later on it was burned to the ground in 404 A.D. during the riots
that occurred in Constantinople as a result of political conflicts within the family of then-
Emperor Arkadios, who had a tumultuous reign from 395 to 408 A.D. Arkadios’ successor,
Emperor Theodosios II, rebuilt the Hagia Sophia, and the new structure was completed in
415. The second Hagia Sophia contained five naves and a monumental entrance and was
also covered by a wooden roof.

However, a little more than one century later, this would again prove to be a fatal flaw for
this important basilica of the Greek Orthodox faith, as the structure was burned for a
second time during the so-called “Nika revolts” against Emperor Justinian I, who ruled
from 527 to 565. while the tourist was explaining this to us he took us round the building
and showed us round then exactly 5pm in the evening after the sight seeing of the great
HAGIA SOPHIA we took cab back to the hotel had then had a nice meal called kebabs
made from lamb, goat and beef

on the second day our tour guide took us to the Galata Tower also known as the Galata
Kulesi museum which we were told was first built in 528 during Byzantium era, the it was
demolished and rebuilt in 1348, by the genoese and it was named tower of Christ, during
Ottoman era it was used as prison in the 16th century and afterwards as the
accommodation place for the Ottoman military band, then as a fire tower in the 19th
century. Galata Tower is topped with a distinctive witch’s-hat roof, it is one of the most
impressive and popular landmarks in Istanbul. Dating back to the 14th century, the tower
is an old Genoese tower overlooking the beautiful Istanbul and has a massive cone
shaped structure that was built at approximately 38 meters above the sea level and rises
to a height of 62 meters above its base. There were two elevators at the entrance that
took us to the top, with its observatory deck we had a 360 degrees view of Istanbul. We
had an amazing view of the Historical Peninsula, Golden Horn and Bosphorus through
Princes’ Islands from the tower.

After a wonderful day at the tower we went back to our hotel. We freshened up and we
all went to have a sit out at the hotel's fireplace where we had our dinner before retiring
for the day.

On our third day tour we visited the grand bazaar