Selimiye Mosque, Nicosia

Unfortunately under renovation when i have visited the place. Suggestive big mosque in the heart of the Turkish side of Nicosia, just close to the big indoor market. A magic place with a suggestive atmosphere.

Impressive mosque. Due to whichever power was dominating at the time, it was common in the area for Christian churches to be converted into Muslim mosques - or vice versa. In fact this used to be a Catholic cathedral as is obvious from the construction, but has huge minarets added.

Beautiful church converted inexplicably to a mosque by Ottoman oppression and later Turkish illegal rule. There is no "vice versa" as some people want to present this practice as, especially to this extent. I love when people want to present mosques being turned to churches as the same exact thing when those same mosques were so often built originally as churches or atop of them because of Ottoman oppression. Some day Turks should realize the destruction that they have caused.

Really unique building! We take a walk around it but we don't opportunity to visit the mosque inside because of the Muslim praying. You can see the long history of the island on the building.

We're sad, it was closed because of rebuilding. Maybe next time.