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West of Sultanahmet, walk along the run-down and busy Divan Yolu to the Column of Constantine (Cemberlitas) , erected in 330 AD to mark the city's dedication as capital of the Roman Empire. Off the main street to the right lies the district of BEYAZIT , centring on the Kapali Carsi , or Covered Bazaar (Mon-Sat 8.30am-7pm; www.kapali-carsi.com ), a huge web of passageways housing over four thousand shops. It has long since spilled out of the covered area, sprawling into the streets which lead down to the Golden Horn. Now that the foundation which runs it has banned traders from hassling tourists, it's a wonderful place to wander through. There are carpet shops everywhere catering for all budgets, shops selling leather goods around Kurkcular Kapi and Perdahcalar Cad, and gold jewellery on Kuyumcular Cad. When you need a break, the swish Fes Cafe on Halicilar Cad is a comfortable place to swig coffee and gloat over hard-won booty. West of the bazaar, peek into the Beyazit Camii , completed in 1506 and the oldest surviving imperial mosque in the city, with a beautiful, sombre courtyard full of richly coloured marble. The interior of the mosque is a perfect square of exactly the same proportions as the courtyard, its plan basically a simplified version of Aya Sofya, with beautiful sixteenth-century carvings. Beyond the Covered Bazaar, in a pleasant area of shady courtyards behind the university, stands one of the finest of all the Ottoman mosque complexes, the Suleymaniye Camii , built in the 1550s by Mimar Sinan in honour of his most illustrious patron, Suleyman the Magnificent, and arguably his greatest achievement. The dome of the light and spacious mosque collapsed during the earthquake of 1766, and further damage was done in the nineteenth century by the Fossati brothers, whose attempt at Ottoman Baroque redecoration jars with the simplicity of the building. But the original stained glass of Ibrahim the Mad remains, above a simply graceful marble pulpit, along with a few Iznik tiles - a first cautious use of tiling by Sinan. Outside, the cemetery (Wed-Sun 9.30am-6.30pm; winter closes 4.30pm) holds the tombs of Suleyman the Magnificent and of Roxelana, his powerful wife. Suleyman's tomb is particularly impressive, with doors inlaid with ebony and ivory, silver and jade and a peristyle supported by four antique columns leading through to the huge turban-like tomb of the sultan. The rest of the complex is made up of the famous Suleymaniye library , established by Suleyman in an effort to bring together collections of books scattered throughout the city, and the Tomb of Mimar Sinan , a simple tomb except for a magnificent carved turban, a measure of the architect's high rank.
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