Ninety seconds on Hagia Sophia
Upstairs is where a visitor goes now, and it suits the mosaics, close at hand and the part the scaffold spoils least.
A paying visitor walks the upper gallery; the floor below belongs to worshippers. Give most of your time to the south gallery, where the Deesis and the Empress Zoe panel hang at eye level. Viking runes scratched into the stone are on the same loop. As of spring 2026 the Virgin and Child in the main hall is curtained, but part of it shows through the southeast gallery window, so look for it there. The way out comes down past the one ground-floor mosaic on the route, the emperors Constantine and Justinian, at the south door.
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