Selimiye Mosque

It's impossible to miss the Selimiye Mosque, Edirne's grandest and most central mosque, designed by the great Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan. Constructed for Sultan Selim II (r 1566-74) and finished just after his death, it is smaller but more elegant than Sinan's tremendous Süleymaniye Camii (1557) in İstanbul, and it's said that Sinan himself considered it his finest work.

To best appreciate the mosque you should enter from the west, as the architect intended, rather than through the terraced park and the arasta (row of shops) to the south. The broad, lofty dome - marginally wider than that of İstanbul's Aya Sofya - is supported unobtrusively by eight pillars, arches and external buttresses, creating a surprisingly spacious interior. As they only bear a portion of the dome's weight, the walls are sound enough to hold dozens of windows, allowing the mosque to be flooded with light, which in turn brings out the colourful calligraphic decorations of the interior. Beneath the main dome is a prayer-reader's platform, and beneath that a small fountain. All the fittings, from the delicately carved marble mimber (pulpit) to the outstanding İznik tile work around the mihrab (niche pointing towards Mecca), are exquisite.