Hotels near The Blue Mosque

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque, universally called the Blue Mosque, was completed in 1617 and takes its nickname from the roughly 20,000 hand-painted Iznik tiles lining the upper interior, most of them in blue and white. It has six minarets, which caused a scandal at the time because it matched the Great Mosque of Mecca. It faces Hagia Sophia directly across a small park, and seeing the two within an hour of each other is the standard Istanbul morning.

Entry is free. It is an active mosque, so it closes to visitors during the five daily prayers and for around 90 minutes on Friday midday, and there is a separate tourist entrance on the southern side. Shoes come off, shoulders and knees are covered, and women need a head covering. The tiles need light, so grey October afternoons genuinely dull the interior.

Pro Tip: Come back to the park between the two mosques at sunset. Both buildings are floodlit, the crowd has thinned, and in October that happens around 6.30pm rather than late at night, so you can do it before dinner rather than instead of it.