Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Alatza Imaret Mosque

Since it was downhill, we decided to walk back to the center of Thessaloniki. As we were walking, we walked right by one of the few mosques that the Turks actually built (rather than just taking over churches). I was reading a book "Thessaloniki: The City and Its Monuments," so I looked up this mosque. It had quite a detailed history and architectural analysis, which in Thessaloniki usually consists of something like: It was built in X, damaged by earthquake/fire in X, repaired, damaged by earthquake/fire in X, repaired, damaged by...you get the idea. Anyway, the description ended by saying: "Today it is in very good condition and is used for cultural events and particularly painting exhibitions." Well, it didn't look like it was in very good shape to us, and the only thing it seemed to be used for was kids playing soccer against it.




It's interesting that, whereas the Turks were only too happy to use Christian temples for their mosques, mosques are only used for "cultural events."


Pelagia took this photo of me sweating after we finally found Osios David. ( :

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