The Basilica Cistern is a must see when you travel to Istanbul. The cistern is a large underground cavern that was constructed during the 6th century by Emperor Justinian. It was designed to hold up to 100,000 tons of fresh drinking water for the city. The cistern has been portrayed in many movies and films including the James Bond movie "From Russia With Love" and the Dan Brown Novel "Inferno". The line for this attraction was very long, but luckily we were able to join a tour group at the last second and jumped ahead of the line. This was one of our favorite places to visit!
Here are some of the network of columns that hold up the roof of the cistern. The cistern measures approximately 450 by 250 feet and has hundreds of these columns supporting the roof. We were able to navigate the cistern by walking on a raised platform that had been constructed through the entire cistern. Prior to the construction of the walkway boats were used to take visitors through.
This is Delaney trying to twirl her thumb around the "weeping hole". Legend says that the hole in the column weeps for all of those that died constructing the cistern. If you can twirl your hand all the way around it is said that you will have good luck.
Another shot of more of the columns. The lighting really makes this a unique place, I cannot imagine how dark it would be if the power went out!
The Romans added carp to the cistern to keep it clean. Some of them were very big!
This is one of the two Medusa head columns. This one has the face pointing sideways and another one the face is upside down. Nobody is really sure why the faces were situated this way, but it probably has to do with the legend of Medusa turning her victims to stone if you gazed into her eyes. These column bases were not discovered until the cistern was drained.
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