Byzantium

Also, its not a mosque anymore and hasn't been for 85 years

>Inb4 literally retarded Breitbarters reply with a creepingshria.blogspot link

You go to """"""""""""""Istanbul"""""""""""""" and you can see the Hagia Sofia, the Theodosian Walls, the cistern, and a handful of small monuments. The rest is all ruins.

>not going to a nightclub and rubbing up against some THICC Turk babes and taking some desperate, trafficked Ukrainian chick back to your $100 a night hotel suite

Turkey is based right now. Tourism is down, shit is cheap, government's fucked so no oversight. Just make sure you have a beard, blend in a little, avoid them tourist spots.

Aside from the kurds staying subhumans who blow themselves up in crowds.

Well anatolia is full with roman,greek and hittie ruins.
Actually when I was last there we went to a lydian mountain grave.
Pretty nice how those people carved a small palace into the mountains.

Pretty much this

Yeah. I wandered past a random tram stop and saw a charred, black Roman column. I wondered what it was, and it turned out it was called the burned column. It had been struck by lightening centuries ago. The Turks barely gave a shit about it so it was just sitting there with no fanfare or plaques or anything, but it had been placed by Constantine himself on his re-founding of the city in 330 AD.

hagia sofia is okay, its in bad shape and is all islamic'n shit. Theres alot of well preserved christian caves in the country side. Some of them are untouched but alot of the murals have their eyes gouged out

And the Pantheon is a church, your point?

If you want to see Byzantine relics, you go to Venice

>t.

THIS

You can see a big chunk of the Theodosian walls, (where the siege happened) obviously the church of Holy Wisdom, the Basilica Cistern, a fort I think, and there is a mosaics museum among other things.
In short, yes.

savage

DELET THIS NOW

Damn good one.

FUCKING TRIGGERED

oh my

>going into crowds

your first mistake

It's not a Mosque. It was turned into a museum after the Ottomans collapsed.

Yeah there's still plenty to see. Went there a couple years back and it's still pretty cool.

It wasn't tore down, left to rot etc. I think they'd rather keep it restored for two reasons:

1. Look how good our land is it has such history
2. Look how good we are at conquering we made the Romans kill.

>cathedral

nah it is being used as a mosque
there is a small room at the side where they do prayers on fridays i think

this doesn't even show all the architectural sites in istanbul
honestly you would need about 2 weeks minimum to do see everything in&around istanbul properly
and even then there would still be hellenistic&ancient&seljuk&ottoman historical locations all around anatolia left to visit

FUCK

...

I'd love to go to Istanbul to see all the cool shit, but fuck traveling to the Middle East, and fuck Istanbul airport.

>It's not a Mosque. It was turned into a museum after the Ottomans collapsed.
Erdogan is just mad enough to turn it into a mosque again
Lets wait and see

Istanbul isn't the Middle East, it's the Near East at best

Interesting

It doesn't have to be like this though.
The kurds could have accepted being south eastern turks just like everyone else already accepted that they are te turks of their part of turkey.

>Istanbul
The name is Constantinople, and it's in Europe.

Hagia Sophia is a very impressive monument in its own right today, let alone in its time
Besides turks are essentially modern day mongols,they conquered large swaths of land but could only destroy and sack leaving rubble behind
Thats why they live in shitoles today

>I think

Nah, you think wrong

They said prayers once for what is basically Muslim Christmas and the Creeping Sharia began autistic screeching.

It is a museum, nobody gives a shit about saying prayers there, not even the fundies. They did it once because they thought it would be neat and people got asspained.

Istanbul airport is ezpz though.

Its a little small for how many people go through, but they are efficient as fuck.

If you've ever traveled in the ME, you're thankful every time at Ataturk because most Arab bureaucracy is still running on 70's technology.

I think he was referencing all the terrorist attacks at the airport.

There was one attack at the airport

What is up with you people? No prayers in the Aya Sofia; there are still plenty of archeological sites, its still a big part of the tourist economy; it has as many terrorist incidents as any other global city.

Are you just memeing or are you disconnected from reality or what?

Nice one, Enrico

...

Was the IV crusade the biggest fuckup in the history of christianity?

I'm sold on visiting Turkey

Do any turkish anons wanna let me sleep on their couch so we can hang out and talk about Veeky Forums stuff?

That's right user, kill the roach while he sleeps.

I'm a Turkish Byzantinist. We have plenty.
Sadly there is a lot of destruction/decay but that is more due to negligence/trying to seize valuable land rather than hatred towards Byzantium, or hittites/greeks/whatever.. Typical money first/ don't are much about culture level politics.

>are much
care*

''Erdogan is just mad enough to turn it into a mosque again
Lets wait and see''

Niggah, we are almost at the brinkof a civil war
because of his Islamist policies

Never allow a country to be ruled by Uneducated Religious people

it isn't a mosque, its a museum now.

I know right ?

This one is easily within walking distance of Hagia Sophia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Hagia_Sophia

triggered desu

>Thrace
>Middle East
lel no

>2 day old thread
>bunch of "dere's nuttin left, allahu akbhar" replies
>not mentioning the Chora Church

Fucking hell..

It got converted into a mosque.

>It got converted into a mosque.

I know, I have visited it

After I made a small donation, the mosque steward lifted up the carpet to show the original flooring underneath

They kept a bunch of the original Hagia Sophia mosaics too.

There is also the sumela monastery I think near Trabzon or Rize, apppearantly the monks got funding from the ottoman royal family till the 20th century.

...

It's a treasure trove of classical history lad, really do go and see it!

I recently went to Istanbul, though it is mostly Turkish culture that you will see, a number of amazing pieces of eastern Roman heritage still remain.
The Hagia Sophia, despite having been used for as a mosque, is a import part of this heritage. The Arab symbols inside might initially give you more of a Muslim impression, but as you walk around the building you really start to see it's Byzantine heritage. And you realize you are walking through the same halls Justinian once did.
The Theodosian walls are in my opinion the place in Istanbul that makes me connect with Ancient Rome the most. They are largely intact and you can walk across most of the defensive structures. They are also surprisingly untouristy, which I found suprising. I was literally roaming a poor area of the city adjacent to the wall, and could just walk up the stairway and ascend to the top of the wall, and stand alone from where Byzantine archers once defended the city. It was great.
Close to the Hagia Sophia there is also an entrance to an underground reservoir built in the time of justinian, it's easy to overlook but definitely worth a visit.
Across the Atatürk bridge you will also find a tower constructed by genoese migrants. It predates the Muslims but lacks that Roman allure and feel of antiquity. Still pretty cool though and it provides an amazing view of the city.
So if you go for a weekend you will probably have just enough time to view all significant Roman remains, and it's definitely worth it.