Still not Constantinople. Today was about ticking off the big ticket items, the Hagia Sofia (reminder, pronounced “aya sofiya”) and Topkapi Palace (rough translation “palace with too many stupid tourists”). The Hagia Sofia (translation “Holy Wisdom”) was built in the 6th Century to be a cathedral, after several other churches in the same spot had existed (the one immediately before was burnt down when some chariot racing politics got out of hand). Then when the Ottoman empire showed up, they stripped out all of the cathedral trappings and turned it into a mosque. Then came the Young Turks who turned it into a museum, before in 2020 the current folks…