Dream of Turkey: Legacy of Istanbul

Full Day City Tour of Istanbul is the best way to explore the admiring of this historical city excitingly. The Suleiman Mosque is an Ottoman imperial mosque located on the Third Hill of Istanbul, Turkey. The mosque was commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent and designed by the imperial architect Mimar Sinan.

An inscription specifies the foundation date as 1550 and the inauguration date as 1557. For 462 years, the Suleiman Mosque was the largest mosque in the city, until it was surpassed by the Çamlıca Mosque in 2019. The Suleiman Mosque is one of the best-known sights of Istanbul, and from its location on the Third Hill, it commands an extensive view of the city around the Golden Horn.

At the four corners of the courtyard are the four minarets. The two taller minarets have three galleries and rise to a high of 63.8 m without their lead caps and 76 m including the caps. Four minarets were used for mosques endowed by a sultan. The minarets have a total of 10 galleries, which by tradition indicates that Suleiman I was the 10th Ottoman sultan.

The main dome is 53 metres high and has a diameter of 26.5 metres which is exactly half the height. At the time it was built, the dome was the highest in the Ottoman Empire, when measured from sea level, but still lower from its base and smaller in diameter than that of Hagia Sophia. The Blue Mosque in Istanbul, also known by its official name, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque is an Ottoman-era historical imperial mosque located in Istanbul, Turkey.

A functioning mosque, it also attracts large numbers of tourist visitors. It was constructed between 1609 and 1616 during the rule of Ahmed I. Hand-painted blue tiles adorn the mosque’s interior walls, and at night the mosque is bathed in blue as lights frame the mosque’s five main domes, six minarets and eight secondary domes. it sits next to the Hagia Sophia, the principal mosque of Istanbul until the Blue Mosque's construction and another popular tourist site.

The Blue Mosque was included in the UNESCO World Heritage Site list in 1985 under the name of "Historic Areas of Istanbul". The upper area is decorated with approximately 20,000 hand-painted glazed ceramic in 60 different tulip patterns. The lower stories are illuminated by 200 stained glass windows. The mosque is preceded by a forecourt with a large fountain and special area for ablution. An iron chain hangs in the court entrance on the western side.