Aya Sophia in Istanbul © Ricky Yates. Originally built as a Church, it was converted to a mosque with the addition of minarets, after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. In 1935, under the government of Ataturk, it was turned into a museum and some of the original Christian mosiacs and frescoes uncovered and restored.

Before I continue describing and illustrating our journey back to Prague from Cappadocia in central Turkey, via Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia, Croatia again, Slovenia, Italy and Austria, I want to post a more reflective piece about Turkey and the tensions and issues that it currently faces. In many respects these are a microcosm of what increasingly divides the West, with its culture and values that are Christian in origin though becoming increasingly secular, from those countries in the Middle East, the Gulf, other parts of Asia and North Africa, where Islam . . . → Read More: The Islamization of Turkey