Hagia Sophia Tickets and Tours | GetExperince.com

Hagia Sophia went up in five years, between 532 and 537. Mathematicians designed it, not masons. Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus put a dome of about 31 metres over a hall 55 metres high.

The dome fell once

The first one was too flat. Earthquakes brought it down in 558, and a nephew of Isidore rebuilt it steeper. That version has held since 562, with buttresses added over the centuries as the walls spread.

What the ticket gets you

The ground floor is a prayer hall and free to enter. Foreign visitors buy a ticket for the gallery above. A separate ramp takes them up, and the mosaics they came for are all on that level.

• The Deesis. A thirteenth-century mosaic of Christ between the Virgin and John, half lost and still the finest thing here.
• Runes. A Norse guardsman scratched his name into a marble parapet, and part of it can still be read.
• The empress's loge. Marked out in green marble, where the court followed the liturgy from above.
• The marble door. A carved slab at the far end of the gallery, used by church synods for centuries.

Practical

• The count. Church for nine centuries, mosque for nearly five, museum for eighty-five years, mosque again since 2020.
• Dress. Legs and shoulders covered, a scarf for women, and shoes carried from the edge of the carpet.
• Prayer. Five pauses a day and a longer one on Friday. The visitor route shuts around them.
• Slots. Entry is timed, and the mid-morning hours sell out first because that is when the coaches arrive.
• Passes. The city museum card does not cover this building. Guided old city days normally price the entry in.
• Stone and heat. Inside stays cool through August. The square outside has almost no shade, so the wait is the hot part.