Turkey 4 - Istanbul / the Basilica Cistern / Chicken lunches and more pomegranite tea/ One entrance and one exit /Jelly fish art installations

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Lunch was taken at the Otantik restaurant . We fell upon it a stones throw away from our hotel . It served a purpose . You could sit outside or in depending on the weather . The menu was average . Touristy but would do . We did not have the time to find fine dining . Our first day was seeping away bit by bit before our eyes. There was walking to be done between the sites we have chosen to see and we wanted to make sure we did everything we had planned in. Had we planned too much too soon ? That is always hard to say . There is that desire to make sure that you don't miss anything balanced against time constraints . The staff at the Otantik were extremely friendly . They recognised us many times afterwards when we passed by . The meal was fine . Touristy because of its location but no tip added . That was to our discretion. We were given a free Pomegranite tea to finish off the meal . A present for you - the waiter said . Beginning to like that drink . Need to bring some home with us . Developing a taste for it . Otantik was a comfortable place to eat . Nothing special but it filled a gap .

Money was an odd commodity . The ease of switching between euros and lira was interesting . The ease of changing money was a delight I had not expected . Money changers in their shops lined most streets . You were never far away from a money exchange with its bright shiny sign and the exchange rates plainly displayed on the walls. Had over 100 euros and get thousands of lira back . I only once got a coin from a money changer . A one lira coin was worth 25p. A 100 lira bill worth £2.47. It was no wonder no-one wanted a pocketful of notes worth very little .

We had already bought our skip the line tickets for the Basilica Cistern and had them loaded onto our phone. The biggest problem was working out where the entrance was and where to find the skip the line queue. The ticket told us to find the third line . However , there was no third line . One extremely long line snaked its way to what looked like the entrance . We presumed that to be the buy on the day queue. The other way was another long queue . We joined the back of what looked like a Japanese tour group . The queue did not move . I was reminded of yet another saying from the calendar . It spoke of following a stream . Have faith in its course . Well we were stuck in a stream it seemed and were going nowhere . The saying went on to remind us that the stream will go its own way meandering here and there . We did no meandering until a guy in front told us he was waiting with his group for the return of the tour guide with their tickets . This meant we were allowed to pass all those waiting and present ourselves at the barrier .

By this time we had worked out the the entrance was one side of a very wide street . The cistern was beneath the whole of the street and the exit emerged the other side of the road . Hidden out of sight . Presented our tickets to be told they were not tickets . The attendants looked at them , looked at us and pondered whilst letting the Japanese group through . Eventually they decided that they had found the tickets , took screen shots put the codes in the barrier and let us in . More security followed and we were stopped again by the next barrier before being let in to the top of the steps that led down to the underground cistern .

First thoughts were how dark it was inside . Partly responsible were my transition lenses in my glasses which had gone black outside. The steps down were narrow and crowded without any real lighting . I guess there was a reason and that was to add to the ambience but it was another health and safety nightmare . It seemed that people stopped on the stairways . They stopped on the walkways to take photographs and knelt down making it extremely difficult for the partially sighted .

It might have made sense to have a one way system with arrows on the floor as walkways ran the entire length of the cistern and diagonally across it . There seemed to be no route to follow which did make it harder to navigate in the semi darkness . It was in a way disorientating as there were just rows and rows of endless columns . Some similar in design and other very dissimilar. Modern ones were interspersed where the originals had perished . The lighting kept changing from a warm glowing orange to a blue/green . We began our walk through trying to avoid the crowds . Sometimes easier said than done . There were no boards telling the story of the cistern nor trying to explain what we were seeing . But then they would have made navigation through worse . So it was a blessing nothing was written down.

There was music playing in the background as we began the walk in what felt like an enormous underground cave . Two thirds of the structure had been opened to the public . The final third was bricked up and unavailable to tourists . The underground cistern had many names and was the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns beneath the city. Hidden in the past . They were unknown to the population apart from a few who dropped buckets down holes to collect the rainwater than had dripped down the many columns . The presence of fish also gave a clue that something was going on underground . The cistern was built in the 6th century during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I . Water levels today are kept low in order to allow public access to the awe inspiring space .

It was hard to imagine that we were standinI underground beneath the large square above us. We felt so removed from reality at times in the darkness with the eerie dripping of water . We had never seen anything like this before on our travels . It was said that 7,000 slaves were involved in the construction of the cistern . A cistern that was one of many others in the city. It was built to serve the Great Palace of Constantinople which has not survived and also to provide water for the Topkapi Palace .

As we walked we saw art installations . One that looked like either a crowd of jellyfish floating in the air or it could have been lampshades . In the darkness they looked odd . A figure of a man standing ankle deep in the water . Photographs were difficult due to the changing lights and the darkness . We probably never did justice to the cistern if the truth be told .

The space is cathedral size and measures 138 metres by 65 metres. It is 9800 square metres in area and holds when full 80,000 metres of water which would last the city I believe 10 days . The ceiling is supported by what is described as a forest of columns which was true as they reached out in all directions . 336 colums most made of marble arranged in 12 rows of 28 columns. The symmetry was stunning . The differences in each column showed they were recycled from other buildings no longer in use . An early example of throwing nothing useful away known then as spoilation. Ionic and Corinthian columns were mainly used with a few Doric columns interspersed with modern ones that had replaced older columns . The modern ones were clear to pick out but not beautiful just functional . Some columns were straight with no decoration . Others were carved with hens eyes and others branches and leaves . A statue of Medusa was placed in a dark corner . Her reflection was projected onto the wall behind .

52 stone steps descended to the depths . We like others were in the hunt for the Medusa column bases. These columns lay on the northwest corner of the cistern . You could miss them easily if you did not look carefully. The clue was probably all the people kneeling down taking photographs . Two columns carved with the face of Medusa had been reused . The origin was unknown though it was thought that they were of Roman origin and moved from somewhere in the city . Rumour has it that the bases of the columns were turned sideways to negate Medusas power. With the Gorgon sideways she could not turn you to stone . However reality probably was that laying the stone sideways gave it more strength . A little like an egg. Stronger one way than the other .

We had finally found what we wanted to see and began our climb out of the cistern into the sunshine . Even though it was gloomy and difficult to see the Cistern was a truly amazing structure. Istanbul is an amazing city with so many different tourist attractions . What a good idea to make it our city destination . We re-entered the light on the other side of the street . The queue to go inside was still as long as it was an hour before . Skip the line is proving a good investment . We still have so many other places to visit . Hopefully we will get everything done that we had planned . Next stop - a mosque and not just any mosque Hagia Sophia .

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