The Blue Mosque and the Hippodrome: Sultanahmet’s Imperial Heart

On the crest of Istanbul’s historic peninsula, two very different empires share one long open space. Along one side runs the line of the Byzantine Hippodrome, where chariot teams once raced in front of up to 100,000 spectators. Rising above it is the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, better known as the blue mosque, completed in the second decade of the seventeenth century on ground that had once held the racecourse’s seating. Standing between an Egyptian obelisk and a cascade of Ottoman domes, you see more than three thousand years of history in a single view. On Day 2 of our Small Group Tour of Ancient Turkey, the group walks the Hippodrome, visits Hagia Sophia and finishes the day at the Blue Mosque.

The Hippodrome: Constantinople’s public stage

The racecourse is older than Constantinople itself. Septimius Severus gave the Roman town of Byzantium a hippodrome in AD 203, and Constantine the Great enlarged it after he chose the city as his new capital in 324, dedicating it in 330. At its height the track was about 450 metres long and 130 metres wide. The emperor watched from the Kathisma, a royal box connected to the Great Palace, so the Hippodrome became the place where ruler and people faced each other in public.

That made it political as well as sporting. Fans were organised into factions, the Blues and the Greens, and in January 532 their combined revolt, the Nika riots, nearly toppled Justinian I. The historian Procopius records that some 30,000 people died when the rising was put down inside the Hippodrome itself, and the fires of that week destroyed the earlier church of Hagia Sophia. Justinian’s replacement, the great domed church that still stands a few minutes’ walk away, is the subject of our guide to Hagia Sophia, from cathedral to mosque.

Most of the racecourse is now buried beneath the modern square, which the Ottomans called At Meydanı, the Square of Horses. The line of the central barrier, the spina, can still be traced by the monuments that survive on it, and the lower walls of the curved southern end, the sphendone, still stand below the level of the streets.

The Obelisk of Theodosius and the Serpent Column

The oldest object in Istanbul stands in the middle of the square. The pink granite Obelisk of Theodosius was first raised at the temple of Karnak in Egypt for Pharaoh Thutmose III, around 1450 BC. The emperor Theodosius I had it erected on the spina in 390, by which time it had been cut into sections for transport; only the upper part survives, still crisp with hieroglyphs. Its marble pedestal is a document in its own right. The reliefs show Theodosius and his court in the Kathisma, presenting a laurel wreath to a victor, with spectators and dancers below.

A few steps away, in a railed pit, stands a twisted bronze stump known as the Serpent Column. It is the base of a victory monument dedicated at Delphi by the Greek cities that defeated the Persians at Plataea in 479 BC: three intertwined snakes that once supported a golden tripod. An inscription on the coils names 31 of the allied cities. Constantine brought it to his new capital, and it stood here, heads and all, until the heads were lost by 1700. An upper jaw found in 1848 is now in the Istanbul Archaeological Museums.

Further south is the Walled Obelisk, a rough stone shaft of uncertain late-antique date, restored and clad in gilded bronze plates under Constantine VII in the tenth century. Its gilded bronze plates were stripped by the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the same campaign that carried four bronze horses from the city to St Mark’s in Venice. At the northern end of the square, the domed German Fountain was a gift from Kaiser Wilhelm II, built in 1900 to mark his visit two years earlier.

Who built the Blue Mosque?

The mosque was commissioned by Sultan Ahmed I, who came to the throne as a teenager in 1603, and designed by his chief architect, Sedefkâr Mehmed Ağa. Building began in 1609. Some inscriptions bear the date 1616, and the opening ceremony was held in 1617. The site was chosen for its prominence, facing Hagia Sophia across what is now Sultanahmet Park, and preparing it meant buying out and demolishing the palaces of leading Ottoman statesmen, including Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, that had been built over the Hippodrome’s seating.

Mehmed Ağa had trained under Mimar Sinan, the architect of the Süleymaniye, and his building carries Sinan’s ideas to a grand conclusion: a central dome 23.5 metres across and 43 metres high, carried on four massive piers and buttressed by four semi-domes and a ring of smaller domes. Ahmed did not enjoy it for long. He died in 1617, aged 27, and lies in the domed tomb at the mosque’s north-eastern corner, together with his wife Kösem Sultan and his sons Osman II and Murad IV. For the dynasty behind it all, see our history of the Ottoman Empire from Osman to Atatürk.

Like other imperial mosques, it was built as the centre of a charitable complex, or külliye. Ahmed’s included a madrasa, a hospital, a public kitchen, a primary school, a bathhouse and the Arasta, a market street that still trades beside the mosque.

The six minarets

The Blue Mosque is recognisable from any point on the Istanbul skyline because it has six minarets where an imperial mosque would usually have four. The four at the corners of the prayer hall each have three balconies; the two at the far corners of the courtyard each have two, sixteen in all. A popular story holds that the architect misheard the sultan’s request for gold minarets, altın, as six, altı, and that because only the mosque at Mecca had six, a seventh had to be added there. It is a good story, and guides tell it well, but there is no documentary evidence for it.

The Iznik tiles and the blue that named the mosque

The mosque’s popular name comes from its interior. More than 20,000 hand-painted tiles from the kilns of Iznik line the lower walls and the galleries; a count made during the recent restoration put the figure at 21,043, in more than fifty designs. Tulips, carnations, cypresses, roses and curling leaves are painted in cobalt, turquoise, green and red on a white ground. The upper walls and domes are painted rather than tiled, predominantly in blue, though much of that painting is a later replacement of the original scheme.

Light is the other material. Around 260 windows pierce the walls, semi-domes and drum of the main dome, and on a bright morning the interior can feel unexpectedly open for a building so heavy outside. Many of the finest tiles sit high on the gallery walls, well above eye level, so it is worth bringing a pair of compact binoculars. A long restoration, begun on one minaret in the mid-2010s and extended to the whole building from 2018, was completed when the mosque reopened in April 2023.

Is the Blue Mosque free to visit?

Yes; at the time of writing there is no entry fee, and the mosque remains an active place of worship. Visitors are expected to leave a respectful distance from anyone praying and to keep voices low. Photography without flash is generally accepted, but avoid photographing worshippers.

When is the Blue Mosque closed to visitors?

It closes to sightseers during each of the five daily prayers, typically for 60 to 90 minutes at a time. Prayer times shift through the year with the sun, so check the schedule posted at the entrance or a prayer-times app on the day. On Fridays the midday congregational prayer means a longer closure, usually until early afternoon. Sightseers use a separate visitors’ entrance, signposted on the day, while the main doors are kept for worshippers.

What should you wear to visit the Blue Mosque?

Cover shoulders and knees, whether you are a man or a woman, and women should also cover their hair. Headscarves and wraps are lent at the entrance, but bringing your own light scarf is simpler. Shoes come off at the door and are carried inside in a plastic bag, so slip-on shoes and socks without holes make the visit easier. Rules can change, so check before you go.

How much walking does a day in Sultanahmet involve?

A fair amount, mostly on paving, cobbles and marble floors rather than hills. The Hippodrome, Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque are all within a short walk of one another, but a full day on your feet, with queues and time standing inside, adds up. The tour is rated Level 2, Moderate: you should be comfortable with three to five hours of physical activity a day and walking up to 8 kilometres on uneven ground. Our local English-speaking guide and Odyssey Program Leader set a considered pace, and the group returns to the hotel for dinner.

Sultanahmet within the wider journey

The Blue Mosque closes the first full day of the tour, and the next morning continues the story at Topkapı Palace, the Ottoman sultans’ court, before the Grand Bazaar and the Basilica Cistern. Our guide to Istanbul as an imperial city sets these monuments in the long history of Byzantium and Constantinople, and the 21-day ancient Turkey itinerary from Istanbul to Gallipoli follows the route on through Anatolia to the Aegean coast.

Seen together, the Hippodrome and the Blue Mosque make the point that Istanbul never quite replaced one empire with another. The Ottoman builders set their mosque on the seats of a Roman racecourse and left the obelisks standing in front of it. On the Small Group Tour of Ancient Turkey, a local guide and an Odyssey Program Leader bring those layers together for a small group of up to 16 travellers.