The Sinking Palace

The Sinking Palace is a nickname for the Basilica Cistern below Istanbul. Built by the Byzantine Emperor Justinianus I in the sixth century, the cistern once held enough water for the entire city-26 million gallons! The columns and archways were recycled from earlier Roman ruins. The cistern was forgotten for hundreds of years until rediscovered by a Dutch traveler in the 1500s. Now, the Sinking Palace is a tourist attraction for Istranbul. Link

Visited this about 15 years ago on a tour of Istanbul. Had never heard of it until the day our guide took us down the stairs and into the gloom. As we walked through, it looked vaguely familiar and suddenly it dawned on me that I had seen it before in From Russia with Love. Of course I was there with my wife, not Tatiana Romanova, and our guide did not look like Ali Kerem Bey, but I had a good time just the same.

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I got to go there in December, actually-- it was not far down the street from my hotel. Evidently some people have weddings down there, which I thought sounded amazing.

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How the hell could they just forget about it?? Strange!

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I went there when I was thirteen!
It was so exciting, yet creepy.
My friends and I kept imagining basilisks (from Harry Potter) coming up and eating us. It was the perfect place for something like that to happen.

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Rich: i misplace my keys all the time. so some-one lost something a little bigger than a set of keys, big deal.

:-P