More adventures in Istanbul

Today we decided to explore some of the sites we hadn't been to on our grand tour!
First stop was the Basilica Cistern, built in 532 AD. This is the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns that lie beneath the city. The cistern is an underground chamber of 143 by 65 metres, capable of holding 80, 000 cubic metres of water. There are 336 marble columns, each 9m high, supporting the ceiling, and two of the columns have as a base medusa heads. All of the columns have been recycled from other buildings at the time of building. Yerabatan Seray (Basilica Cistern) was constructed in the mid-500's A.D. during the reign of Justinian I in order to supply water to palaces located nearby. The water was brought in from water sources in the Belgrade Forest via aquaducts, and then stored in cisterns such as this one. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the cistern fell largely unused for centuries.
The acoustics are wonderful and they play classical music, which provides a beautiful, atmospheric experience.
The cistern was used in the Bond movie From Russia, with love.


We continued our meandering around the streets of Istanbul, heading towards our personal Mecca, the Grand Bazaar!


We stopped for a cup of (very bad) coffee in this cemetery - it's not often you are able to do this!
Then continuing on until we did reach the market, where we had some intensive retail therapy (again!), and recovered with PROPER coffee!!!

Then... an experience that I'll certainly never forget! arlier in the day we had picked up a brochure from the Cagaloglu Hamami - but I was unwilling to backtrack all the way there from the bazaar. Fortunately the Cemberlitas Hamami is just over the road, so while my friends went for tea, I went for a bath! Prices are shown for the Cagaloglu bath.. just to give you an idea!

OK, well first step, of course, is to strip off. Challenging... but all women, and the attendants are all just in their knickers, so it should be ok. GULP! They give you a locker in which to put your clothes, and a cloth (pestemal) to wrap around you, plus a pair of slip on shoes - the floor is marble, and both warm and wet.
Inside, you enter the hararet, or hot room. This is really a Turkish bath - very steamy and hot. In the middle of the room, underneath a domed roof pierced by windows so that it looks like stars, there is a large marble platform that you sit on to begin the 'cooking'. This is the room, but there were around 20 naked women in there having a bath, plus similarly naked attendants. It was quite crowded and very busy! Every now and then, the women attendants would start singing, which added to the enjoyment of all concerned I think.

After you've softened up, a masseur rubs your body down with a coarse glove, gives you a vigorous massage, covers you with soap bubbles, washes you front and back and finally dumps several buckets of water over your head. It's a bit tricky the first time she asks you to turn over on the marble slab - one because you have no idea what you're being asked to do at first, and then two because the marble is damned slippery and it's easy to slide right off it. It's hard to maintain dignity in all situations, however I just kept reminding myself that there was nobody there who knew me!!! After the sluicing, the attendant grabbed me by the wrist and directed me to a spot on the floor next to one of the basins, washed my hair thoroughly and then dumped more water over me until I was soap-free. After this I was free to either stay or go back to a cooler room to recover! Then back to the changing rooms, half an hour to get the knots out of my hair and out I went, feeling clean and invigorated!