The Errant Æsthete

One of the most exciting discoveries for a first time visitor to Istanbul is the easy grace with which the city is at once ancient and modern. It is a place full of an infectious vibrant energy, encircled by an ancient and crumbling city wall. In the same moment, you feel the excitement of a 15 million strong cosmopolitan city, while standing a few feet away from ancient Byzantine buildings and relics. Or in some places, above them.

Nicknamed the “Sinking Palace” by locals, the forest of Roman columns rising from the black pools of water in the Basilica Cistern certainly do look like the skeleton of a once grand residence, slowly succumbing to its watery grave. The cistern lies underground, just below the tram lines and busy streets of Istanbul’s Old Town. The largest of several hundred cisterns below the surface of Istanbul, the Sinking Palace once held an emergency water supply for all of Constantinople, but today has been drained, save for a foot or two of rainwater, teeming with goldfish. [LINK]