Basilica Cistern aka: Yerebatan Sarayı, Yerebatan Sarnıcı

10 lira to enter…

This is an amazing and atmospheric place. It is an inderground water systern. From the outside it look realy unpromising, a square concrete block building a bit like a public toilet, but inside and underground it is truely amazing

One of the nicest things about the cistern is that it’s cool down there! After a hot walk above, it’s a nice cool walk through more than 300 columns. The Medusa heads are the star attraction, and they are pretty amazing.

My friends and I thought the ambiance would have been improved by Turkish classical music, Sufi perhaps, rather than the Bach they were playing over a discreet sound system. There’s a café down there, and concerts are held down there as well. It’s a little pricey to get into, 10 YTL (compared to 4YTL for the Mosaic Museum, or 15YTL for Hagia Sophia), but it’s really too fascinating to miss.

After the heat, noise and hustle and bustle of Istanbul, the basilica cistern, an underground cavern filled with hundreds of columns, is an oasis of calm. Here you can see two carvings of the heads of medusa.