"Looking at Istanbul with eyes wide open
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Anyone who has ever spent time maneuvering the trinket-laden streets of Sultanahmet would have come across the wonderful Basilica Cistern. Now the cistern is one of my favourite things in Istanbul. Not only is it evidence of the engineering brilliance of the Byzantines, but what I find really interesting is the fact that after the Turks arrived, the cistern was forgotten about for about the first hundred years of the Ottoman Empire. Sure the locals knew something was down there but, thanks to the presence of holes in the floors of houses through which you could simply lower a bucket and collect water, nobody bothered to go down there and investigate."
More:Looking at Istanbul with eyes wide open - Turkish Daily News Jan 29, 2008