Maybe Not The Grand Bazaar, But All in All, A Pretty Darn Good One

So, after finding out the hard way that the Grand Bazaar was closed on Sundays, we decided to head down and find the Spice Bazaar, which remains open on Sundays during August. After stopping to get some souvenirs for the girls, I was reoriented by the nice shopkeeper on where we were.

We had just gone through a maze of streets, and while I had a general idea of where we were, I had no specific idea. Now I knew roughly how to get to the Spice Bazaar, but I didn’t know specifically. I had run out of old mosques by which to find my bearings. We then happened onto a very strange scene.

We wandered into a maze of streets that could best be described as the clothes bazaar. It was an open air market. But we might have been the only Westerners there. No one bothered us – hardly any gave us second looks. Instead, the shopkeepers were busy flagging down the covered women (most in colorful headscarves signifying Turkish Muslims and some in the more somber black of the Arabic countries) and selling to them.

(As an aside, we were surprised to see how many women wore the head scarves in Istanbul. It is a sign of the growing strength of the ruling Islamist Party, we presume. We had been told that we would see very few "covereds" as they are called, but nearly every women here in this bazaar was wearing one. It was as though it was the price of admission.)

There were vendors selling water. I paid one Turkish lira for two bottles – that’s essentially 75 cents for TWO bottles. Between breakfast and now this, I was starting to find some food bargains. There were also numerous carts selling grilled corn on the cob. I should have bought one just for the experience, but wasn’t hungry. Julia suggested a new business for me – a man and his dream, being the first to sell corn on the cob via a pushcart. (I can see me on the streets of DC now!)

(As another aside, one thing I love about traveling in non-English speaking countries is the bizarre array of t-shirts with English language words on them that are either nonsense when strung together, or clearly knock-offs. Abercrombie and Fitch would be a buy stock if all they actually sold all the shirts with their name on it. My personal favorite, however, was a t-shirt I saw on a man in Athens. It simply said "New York Teams." He had the bases covered – Yankees, Mets, Giants, Jets, Rangers, Islanders, Devils, Nets, Knicks. If there are any college sports still left in NY, they are covered too.)

We then wandered up to a building, and I said – "I think this is the Spice Bazaar. Let’s go in!" And it was the Spice Bazaar. (I know what you are thinking – "Glen, must be tough being right all the time." And it is, but I’ve learned to deal with it. Mrs. Iron Tourist? She's still learning to deal with me being right.)

I will admit that wandering through streets somewhat randomly and getting to the right point by guessing correctly at each intersection (and by intersection we mean of two narrow cobblestone streets) was extremely lucky.

The Spice Bazaar is extremely cool. Housed in a rickety two story building, there are shop after shop selling various spices, Turkish candies, Turkish tea, dates, and a basic polyglot of stuff. The outdoor clothing bazaar (almost like a giant flea market) was neat just because we wandered through it as though we weren’t really there. No one paid us any mind, and we didn’t stop to look at or sample the wares.

The Spice Bazaar was different. We bought some Apple Tea for Julia, which they vacuum packed and sealed. I bought some dates to munch on over the next few days. I also bought some barbeque rub for meat, and Torie had some Turkish Delight. She didn’t care for it, so instead we passed on it. We also got some Christmas gifts at the Bazaar. Carol wanted a new teapot for show, but there were none being sold there. Plenty of colorfully decorated/painted plates, but no teapot.

After spending a fair amount of time in the market (you walk at the crowd’s pace, not your own), we made our way back into the bright sunshine. We headed down the couple of blocks to the Golden Horn, passing yet another famous old mosque. The streets were packed with people. To cross a busy street, we went below, through an underground pedestrian crossway. It was packed, with shops on both sides, and we could hardly pass through because of the crowds.

We crossed the Galata Bridge – where many men were hanging out fishing and then took two cabs back to the hotel (paying fair, agreed upon rates). That had been quite a bit of walking (and yes, we bought ice cream), so we hung out at the pool for a while, watching the freighters and yachts go by on the Bosphorus.

Dinne involved a taxi ride to Nevizade Sokak in the Taksim area. That was a neat (and affordable) ride, as we went in to parts of the city that were much more alive with local life than where we had been. Nevizade is a small pedestrian street with lots of restaurants in a trendy area. Being Sunday night, it wasn’t as crowded as normal, but there were still a decent number of people.

Our waiter brought us small plates of meze to look at and order from. Meze is the Turkish equivalent of Tapas – a variety of small dishes you can eat as appetizers, or string together in a lengthy, relaxed meal. Carol and I opted for a dinner essentially of meze – shrimp, calamari, yogurt with spinach, stuffed grape leaves, some meat dishes, green beans, etc. The girls liked the meze, but they also went with conventional dinners. The BBQ on the Bosphorus the night before was neat because of the setting, but this dinner was great because it was more authentic, and the area had a lively vibe.

We caught two cabs going back. I think we paid less for the other six cabs combined we took that day than we paid for the first one. Live and learn.

I enjoyed this day in Istanbul more than the first, when we saw all the sights. The first day was very interesting, but the second day was much more lively. Gave us a much better sense of Istanbul.