Hagia Sophia

And in the other direction, viewed still from this room, the Hagia Sophia (see below, and sorry about the weak MacBook camera).

This is one of the most hilarious hotel rooms I’ve ever had. I was just looking for something reasonably good to enjoy Istanbul for one night, and chose the appropriate (not so high) price range for that. But I seem to have lucked into some sort of sale on a completely over-the-top luxury room.

It feels like something halfway between a honeymoon suite and a hotel room from an Istanbul Barbie set. The telephone looks like it would belong on the Titanic, if there had been phones on ships in those days. The ceiling of the room looks fit for the Sultan himself. This is an utterly absurd hotel room, but has a staggering view from two sides and should be great to wake up in tomorrow.

Unfortunately I lost an hour, since Turkey continues to use daylight time while Egypt abolished it, so everything was pretty much closed in Sultanahmet by the time I got here. That’s why I’m blogging rather than out enjoying the city. I did take a bit of a walk, though.