Camlica Mosque, Istanbul

At the top of the 268-meter (879 feet) Çamlıca hill on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, this new and controversial  Mosque, is destined to be one of the largest religious buildings built in Turkey since the declaration of the Turkish republic in 1923.  The complex is designed to be not just a place of worship, but a cultural centre with a library . During Friday prayers, the interior and the courtyard of Çamlıca Cami will be able to accommodate as many as 35,000 worshipers.  It is scheduled to be completed by July 2016 and said to cost 43 million euros. Controversial on several levels, including the location in one of the few forest areas that are left in Istanbul and proximity to the field of radio antennae for health reasons, the site looms huge .


Walking on campus after school,  the new Mosque is clearly seen across the Bosphorus, when the late afternoon sunlight reflecting off the minarets caught my eye.  Once again my Panasonic Lumix FZ200 comes in to its own on full zoom, and the resulting image belies both distance and size.


Aftermath of Saturday's murderous bombing in Ankara has meant strikes, marches and mass demonstrations all over Turkey today - especially Istanbul.  People are angry. Many hold the government politically responsible for the massacre. 
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'Changeable" hardly describes the weather - today was very sunny and rather uncomfortably hot for the season, but tonight is torrential rain.