2025/12/07 The Byzantiboo's Guide to Constantinople Part 3
Welcome back for the third and final installment. I hope you like my blog's new redesign.
Hagia Irene
Despite also having been built by Justinian in the sixth century, the contrast between the Hagia Irene and the Hagia Sophia is stark. If the Hagia Sophia is the light, today the Hagia Irene is the shadow. Unlike her sister Sophia who was converted to a mosque, much of her grandeur intact, Irene was stripped of her decor and riches, leaving for a visitor today the naked stone of a once grand cathedral. The Hagia Irene is on the same ticket as the Topkapi Palace because the Sultans used the cathedral, after having hollowed it out, as an arsenal for the fortress.
The inside is bare, but beautiful. Juxtaposed with the Hagia Sophia, in the Hagia Irene you feel the royalty of the ascetic; you see the skeletal saint so filled with the Spirit he needs not for food. It reminds me of a church I saw in Lisbon, named the Church of St Dominic, which was ruined by fire, leaving behind the bones and ash of its former self. Walking around the Hagia Irene, you feel its solemnity. And this solemnity is aided by the fact there are few else there. Unlike the Topkapi Palace and the Hagia Sophia, which are both teeming with throngs of people, not a soul visits the Hagia Irene, even though each and every one of them has access by their tickets. It's just next door too, placed between the palace and St Sophia. The tour groups don't bother, and its location is inconspicuous, so I suspect many visitors uninterested in the glories of Eastern Rome - unlike you of course, dear reader - pass Irene by not knowing what they miss.
Her main charm point is found in the apse of the dome. There, you'll find a cross which from all angles looks straight, even though it is painted on the inside of the curved dome. This is no mean mathematical feat, and in person it looks more impressive than any picture could do it justice. When showing this to my family, I pointed to the cross and said "look there"; unimpressed, they gazed on, until I pointed out that the straight cross was on a domed surface, after which they were quite impressed. Not quite as excited as I was... but they were definitely impressed, genuinely so. Either way, a visit to the Hagia Irene is a must, and I would recommend a trip in spite of her hollowed-out interior to any tourist, Byzantiboo or otherwise.
Basilica Cistern
The steady stream of water passing through the great aqueduct of Valens had to end up somewhere and be stored. In Constantinople, that somewhere was the cisterns. The cisterns, these underground temples, stored water for the whole city through peacetime and through times of siege, when water was especially precious. No doubt in years now lost, access to these vaults of water was select and given to few; now of course they are teeming with tourists. The Basilica Cistern was beautiful, please don't misunderstand what I am to say, but the popularity seemed disproportional to what was there. Contrasting with the Hagia Irene around which the footsteps of each visitor could be distinguished, the popularity for the cistern and the length of the queue to get in took me aback. We got there early and queued before open, and this I would heartily recommend. You can be waiting in line for over an hour otherwise. And since we were some of the first to enter, we got to enjoy the cistern with some of the peace and quiet a cavern of this kind ought to have. Voices carry, voices echo, in a cave. And by the end of my visit, the visitors were nearly shoulder to shoulder; then, leaving the cistern to the daylight, we saw the long queue outside waiting for tickets, a queue we managed to avoid. This was October, mind. Heaven knows what peak seasons would be like.
This may come as no surprise after having mentioned the business of each site, but I've grown to realise I can't stand touristy sites. Call me curmudgeonly, but I can't bear big sites packed with people; all the strangers ruin the ambience and the magic of a site. I understand, I understand, a site which is popular is popular not just to me but to everyone else too. The world isn't set up for me to be her only tourist. But the levels of tourism today feel like suffering— especially tour groups. Tour groups I cannot stand. Why can't they be limited to certain days or certain weeks of the year? I want a time to enjoy sites without schools of packed-sardine tourists squeezing through corridors, staring gormlessly at sites for which they care so little. Apologies. That is my rant over.
The cistern has these beautiful columns holding up the ceiling. That such beautiful and ornate columns were to be used for this underground hidden structure is at first bemusing. And I will confess, at first I was busy pontificating about how in the finery of a past age they felt it necessary to beautify even that which was hidden to the eye. You see, my right eye only sees the past, and everything it sees is sepia-toned. No, unfortunately the past too had economic constraints. The truth of the matter is that these pillars were recycled, recycled from old temples since the old gods were no longer worshipped, and repurposed to holding the water supply. This explained why one famous column, pictured above, has this horned visage. Very cool.
Galata Tower
Finally we reach the end of our tour, and we reach the end with a site which wasn't made by the Byzantines. No, the Galata tower was built by Genoese against the Byzantines. I'll have to set the scene.
The riches of Byzantium were once vast. Being located where they were, at the doorway of Europe, much of the trade with the East came through Byzantine ports. Their monopoly on silk too was a great boon. And the mercantile republics of Italy, those germing seedlings of modern capitalism, saw the denarii they could make. Venice had a privileged status trading with Constantinople, since the Doge of Venice paid homage to the emperor as his subject. This changed under Manuel I Komnenos, when, due to increasing Venetian influence economically and politically over Constantinople, Manuel I punished, arrested, and subdued the Venetian merchants in what was a widely popular move. The Venetians never forgot, however; and neither had they forgiven. Come the fourth crusade, it was Venetian ships who sailed the Mediterranean, and Venetians - most notably Enrico Dandolo - who steered the crusaders' rudder toward the New Rome. The orgy of violence which followed is to my mind one of the greatest tragedies in European history. The Byzantines never recovered.
That was 1204; Galata Tower was built in the fourteenth century. In her decay and weakness, the Byzantines were unable to stop the Genoese merchantmen from building a fortification just across the Golden Horn. What a grave insult! Now, I will confess, I found the Galata Tower wholly uninteresting. Not only because it is an anti-Byzantine fortification, but also because it is rather unimpressive to the eye. It is quite tall, sure, but its view is only impressive because it sits upon a steep hill. And talking of steepness, the price of entry was steep too; and the queue to enter was awfully long to boot. Thinking of climbing cramped stairs with so many other tourists made my skin crawl a little, and needless to say I didn't go up.
Conclusion
Apologies for my bitter end to the guide. But perhaps it is fitting; the love of the Byzantiboo is a tragic one, and always destined to melancholy and sadness. I hope your coming visit to Constantinople will, however, not be one of sadness, and instead be spent marvelling at what once was and what could've been. Were it not for the Latins, were it not for the hordes, were it not for the Turks: these questions you'll ask yourself as you walk these ancient cobbled streets. Some may call you a dreamer; others may tell you to enjoy the city it has become. But I know you, my fellow Byzantiboo. Like me you're a dreamer, dreaming about a city long lost to time's sands. Dreaming with one foot in Turkish Istanbul, and the other foot in Justinian's Constantinople, floating.
These sites I've enumerated and described are Constantinople's inheritance, her affects. Now that she is gone it is by these sites she's remembered. Some have stood over five hundred years, some over a thousand, and others over one-and-a-half thousand. And they remain, standing as testament to a once great empire. I hope I have done these sites justice, and I hope you too will visit Constantinople.
Despite also having been built by Justinian in the sixth century, the contrast between the Hagia Irene and the Hagia Sophia is stark. If the Hagia Sophia is the light, today the Hagia Irene is the shadow. Unlike her sister Sophia who was converted to a mosque, much of her grandeur intact, Irene was stripped of her decor and riches, leaving for a visitor today the naked stone of a once grand cathedral. The Hagia Irene is on the same ticket as the
The steady stream of water passing through the great aqueduct of Valens had to end up somewhere and be stored. In Constantinople, that somewhere was the cisterns. The cisterns, these underground temples, stored water for the whole city through peacetime and through times of siege, when water was especially precious. No doubt in years now lost, access to these vaults of water was select and given to few; now of course they are teeming with tourists. The Basilica Cistern was beautiful, please don't misunderstand what I am to say, but the popularity seemed disproportional to what was there. Contrasting with the Hagia Irene around which the footsteps of each visitor could be distinguished, the popularity for the cistern and the length of the queue to get in took me aback. We got there early and queued before open, and this I would heartily recommend. You can be waiting in line for over an hour otherwise. And since we were some of the first to enter, we got to enjoy the cistern with some of the peace and quiet a cavern of this kind ought to have. Voices carry, voices echo, in a cave. And by the end of my visit, the visitors were nearly shoulder to shoulder; then, leaving the cistern to the daylight, we saw the long queue outside waiting for tickets, a queue we managed to avoid. This was October, mind. Heaven knows what peak seasons would be like.
This may come as no surprise after having mentioned the business of each site, but I've grown to realise I can't stand touristy sites. Call me curmudgeonly, but I can't bear big sites packed with people; all the strangers ruin the ambience and the magic of a site. I understand, I understand, a site which is popular is popular not just to me but to everyone else too. The world isn't set up for me to be her only tourist. But the levels of tourism today feel like suffering— especially tour groups. Tour groups I cannot stand. Why can't they be limited to certain days or certain weeks of the year? I want a time to enjoy sites without schools of packed-sardine tourists squeezing through corridors, staring gormlessly at sites for which they care so little. Apologies. That is my rant over.
The cistern has these beautiful columns holding up the ceiling. That such beautiful and ornate columns were to be used for this underground hidden structure is at first bemusing. And I will confess, at first I was busy pontificating about how in the finery of a past age they felt it necessary to beautify even that which was hidden to the eye. You see, my right eye only sees the past, and everything it sees is sepia-toned. No, unfortunately the past too had economic constraints. The truth of the matter is that these pillars were recycled, recycled from old temples since the old gods were no longer worshipped, and repurposed to holding the water supply. This explained why one famous column, pictured above, has this horned visage. Very cool.
Galata Tower
Finally we reach the end of our tour, and we reach the end with a site which wasn't made by the Byzantines. No, the Galata tower was built by Genoese against the Byzantines. I'll have to set the scene.
The riches of Byzantium were once vast. Being located where they were, at the doorway of Europe, much of the trade with the East came through Byzantine ports. Their monopoly on silk too was a great boon. And the mercantile republics of Italy, those germing seedlings of modern capitalism, saw the denarii they could make. Venice had a privileged status trading with Constantinople, since the Doge of Venice paid homage to the emperor as his subject. This changed under Manuel I Komnenos, when, due to increasing Venetian influence economically and politically over Constantinople, Manuel I punished, arrested, and subdued the Venetian merchants in what was a widely popular move. The Venetians never forgot, however; and neither had they forgiven. Come the fourth crusade, it was Venetian ships who sailed the Mediterranean, and Venetians - most notably Enrico Dandolo - who steered the crusaders' rudder toward the New Rome. The orgy of violence which followed is to my mind one of the greatest tragedies in European history. The Byzantines never recovered.
That was 1204; Galata Tower was built in the fourteenth century. In her decay and weakness, the Byzantines were unable to stop the Genoese merchantmen from building a fortification just across the Golden Horn. What a grave insult! Now, I will confess, I found the Galata Tower wholly uninteresting. Not only because it is an anti-Byzantine fortification, but also because it is rather unimpressive to the eye. It is quite tall, sure, but its view is only impressive because it sits upon a steep hill. And talking of steepness, the price of entry was steep too; and the queue to enter was awfully long to boot. Thinking of climbing cramped stairs with so many other tourists made my skin crawl a little, and needless to say I didn't go up.
Conclusion
Apologies for my bitter end to the guide. But perhaps it is fitting; the love of the Byzantiboo is a tragic one, and always destined to melancholy and sadness. I hope your coming visit to Constantinople will, however, not be one of sadness, and instead be spent marvelling at what once was and what could've been. Were it not for the Latins, were it not for the hordes, were it not for the Turks: these questions you'll ask yourself as you walk these ancient cobbled streets. Some may call you a dreamer; others may tell you to enjoy the city it has become. But I know you, my fellow Byzantiboo. Like me you're a dreamer, dreaming about a city long lost to time's sands. Dreaming with one foot in Turkish Istanbul, and the other foot in Justinian's Constantinople, floating.
These sites I've enumerated and described are Constantinople's inheritance, her affects. Now that she is gone it is by these sites she's remembered. Some have stood over five hundred years, some over a thousand, and others over one-and-a-half thousand. And they remain, standing as testament to a once great empire. I hope I have done these sites justice, and I hope you too will visit Constantinople.