Religious Buildings

Religious buildings hold some of humanity's most ambitious architecture, and the collection gathered here spans continents and creeds rather than any single tradition. In Istanbul, Hagia Sophia has stood since 537 AD, its 55-meter dome floating over a space that served as a cathedral, then a mosque, then a museum, and is once again a working mosque; a short walk across Sultanahmet Square, the Blue Mosque answers it with six minarets and more than 20,000 hand-painted İznik tiles whose cobalt glaze gives the building its nickname. Spain preserves the same layered history in stone: the Mezquita of Córdoba shelters a forest of roughly 856 columns beneath candy-striped red-and-white arches, with a Renaissance cathedral improbably grafted into its center, while Barcelona's Sagrada Família has been rising since Gaudí broke ground in 1882 and is only now approaching completion.

The register keeps shifting as you travel east. Cambodia's Angkor Wat is the largest religious monument on earth, a 12th-century Khmer temple-mountain built for Vishnu and later embraced by Buddhism, so central to national identity that it appears on the country's flag. In Bangkok, Wat Pho cradles a 46-meter gilded reclining Buddha with mother-of-pearl soles, and Wat Arun catches the first light on a central spire encrusted with fragments of Chinese porcelain. Climb the naga staircase at Doi Suthep above Chiang Mai, the 272 rainbow-painted steps to the Murugan shrine at Kuala Lumpur's Batu Caves, or descend 200 meters into a working salt mine to reach the Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá near Bogotá, and the definition of sacred space stretches further still. Modern devotion is here too—Casablanca's Hassan II Mosque raises a 210-meter minaret above the Atlantic surf, Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque crowns 82 white domes over one of the world's largest hand-knotted carpets, and Reykjavík's basalt-inspired Hallgrímskirkja rises 74.5 meters over the harbor.

Planning a visit rewards a little homework. Dress modestly at every site—cover shoulders and knees, and carry a scarf for head-covering at mosques and some temples—and be ready to remove your shoes at Buddhist and Islamic sites, where socks are worth packing. Mosques close to non-worshippers during the five daily prayers and especially at midday Friday, so check prayer times before you go; cathedrals and monasteries such as Lisbon's Manueline Jerónimos often charge for the cloisters while keeping the nave free for worship. Early mornings and late afternoons deliver the thinnest crowds and the most flattering light, whether that means dawn quiet inside a temple or the nightly Ganga Aarti fire ceremony on the ghats of Varanasi. Many of these buildings double as galleries of priceless art—Giotto-era frescoes, gold-leaf iconostases, intricate Islamic calligraphy—so a knowledgeable local guide who can read the symbolism turns a quick photo stop into an hour of genuine understanding.