![]() A complete restoration will begin in 2024, but it’s unclear if the mosque will remain open in part during this time. Both are unquestionably beautiful, but the feeling of time being suspended as you step into Aya Sofya’s ancient, faded interior is a special moment. Its purpose was to outshine nearby Aya Sofya, which was consecrated as a church in 537 and converted to a mosque in 1453. A five-minute walk brings me to the curvaceous Blue Mosque, built in 1603-17, named for the 21,000 blue Iznik tiles of its interior. Rise early is the advice to beat the hordes of cruise ship passengers still busy at their breakfast buffets. On previous visits, I’ve stayed in Beyoglu on the other side of the Golden Horn - the 7.5km-long estuary that connects the Bosphorus with the Sea of Marmara - where you find the most restaurants, shops, and liveliest nightlife, but this time I’m happy to swap the beat of Turkish disco music for the call to prayer from vast minarets like slender asparagus spears. The hotel’s rooftop bar has sweeping views of the latter, the crown of a neighbourhood that brims with mosques and buildings dating from Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman periods. Sultanahmet is the oldest quarter of the city, home to all of Istanbul’s top ancient attractions such as the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofya. The prison wasn't built solely for function it had architectural beauty with watchtowers resembling fairytale turrets and abundant marble fittings. We wander under vaulted ceilings, through exquisitely carved doors to a small, tucked-away mosque decorated in tiles with floral motifs in cobalt blue and emerald green, where both prisoners and their keepers knelt in prayer. What surprises me is that no expense was spared on architectural finesse: watchtowers are like fairytale turrets and there’s marble in abundance in what was the warden’s quarters (now a luxury suite) the entire balcony is made of the finest stone, and then I learn it was designed as an opulent guest house. Below is the date, 1935, and a heart with an arrow flying through it, touching in its schoolboy simplicity. “Look here, this was an inscription from the prisoner, Sofor Niyazi,” she says, pointing to a name scratched into a marble pillar. ![]() Keeper of the building’s secrets, she points out all sorts of details you’d be sure to miss. You’ll see them repurposed all over the hotel.” “These tiles were taken from the prisoners’ bathhouse,” Busra Yazlik, the hotel’s resident storyteller, explains, pointing to the centrepiece of the tiled corridor. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what staying in a former place of detention might look like (the film Midnight Express had certainly fuelled my imagination), but the journey from dilapidated jail to the 5-star luxury of Four Seasons Sultanahmet is a remarkable story, and one that isn’t trying to hide its past. “It’s the only prison you’ll never want to leave,” the porter had joked as he guided me to my gorgeous room furnished with original artworks and hand-woven kilims. I’m residing in a prison in Istanbul built in 1918 (no need to send money just yet), following in the footsteps of many renowned Turkish writers, poets, and political activists, although my lunch of Aegean herb pide (Turkish pizza from a wood oven) is undoubtedly better than prison grub, and which I enjoy on the flower-filled terrace of restaurant Avlu, once the exercise enclosure for convicts. Kate Wickers stays in a former Istanbul prison turned luxury hotel that’s surrounded by the city’s best attractions The Four Seasons Sultanahmet in Istanbul was originally a prison built in 1918.
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