More scenes from St Savior church in Chora

Flight to Egypt

Wedding at Cana, the turning of water into fine wine

Feeding of the five thousand with 2 fish and a few loaves of bread

Ecclesiastical frock, fresco details

 The wise men asking King Herod where the new king was born

 Mary and baby Jesus, a fresco

 More miracles

It's unusual to see both mosaics and frescoes in a single church. Mostly its either only mosaics like the Byzantine churches in Sicily. Monreale and the Palantine chapel, both in Palermo, has spectacular Byzantine mosaics that are so worth seeing. As for Byzantine frescoes, the place is Cappadocia in central Turkey which we will visit later. Here in Istanbul we had our first taste of Byzantine frescoes but we would be moved by the ones in Cappadocia.
I love this church, the only one not used as a mosque in Istanbul where the mosaics and frescoes are more or less intact. It's not easy to get here and there are no crowds. The people who find themselves are die hard thrill seekers looking for the unusual and they are so rewarded. Like any other trip, I don't want the canned experience. Everywhere we went in Turkey, everyone traveled with their Lonely Planet guide tucked under their arm, us included. Talk about a canned experience. Our guide in Cappadocia was musing about the little secret tips in Lonely Planet, we think only the few elect knows, but we will realise that every reader of Lonely Planet can find out and they are not really secrets.