Today we explored the town of Edirne, previously known as Adrianople (after Hadrian). We visited three mosques today (this is getting to be like the Cathedral tours of Europe!). Our first stop was the Selimiye Mosque, with architect Mimas Sinan’s masterpiece design where the mosque (built 1568-1575) has a single great dome supported by eight pillars. It is a UNESCO site and the outside is currently being renovated (hence the scaffolding). As is often the case, the mosque is entered via an entrance in the bazaar, which makes it easier to do some shopping and just pop into the mosque when you hear the call to prayer.
The second mosque was the Eski Cami, now called the old mosque, and thirdly Uc Serefeli Cami with four distinctive minarets. The mosques don’t always have the same number of minarets, and we easily walked between them all.
We took the bus to visit the Medical Museum, which was a bit further out of town and originally built as a hospital where the doctors lived and trained (built in 1488) for 400 years, before being turned into a museum. Some of the methods of treatment back then were quite strange.
We then went for lunch at a very nice riverside restaurant, where I had a beautifully cooked lamb shank, bulgar, and Greek salad, followed by Kunefe for dessert mmmmmm.
We had the rest of the afternoon free, couldn’t manage any more food at dinner time so we drank beer on a patio instead.
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