1-01-2009 Photo essay of our trip to the Grand Bizarre

Another beautiful day in Istanbul starts out with an equally inspiring sunrise at 5:30 AM

Immediately after breakfast we set out by subway to the Grand Bazaar which is one of the oldest continuous markets on the planet . Over 4000 stalls!!!

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO BOO IN THE UPPER RIGHT OF THE BLOG FOR MORE SHOPPING INFO TOO!!

Turkish Eyes were everywhere made of fused cobalt colored glass. Hanging one above your doorway at home or at your business is said to keep evil away in Turkish customs. I have one of these to give away as part of the post adventure drawing!!1

Here is a shot of what the entrance to the Bazaar looks like. Most of these photos are not well executed because of the light and crowd conditions, but still give you an idea of how huge and varied this market is

Scarves and locally made textiles were everywhere

Here are some leather goods

The Turkish silver and gold jewelry booths was never ending!!!!

Some lovely silver above

Here are the scarves again!!

A Fez dispenser

Water pipes are a very popular glass item at the market. We love the huka bars where the men smoke tobacco around a table from these pipes. We finally saw a woman at a huka joint but only after we arrived in Turkey

I wanted EVERY one of these stunning beaded lamps!! What a display

A great little hat display…loved the head forms too

A quick snack of a cold kebab of some sort and a coke

We bumped into an entire street of button and buckle shops!! This was not the tourist area but a place where local business people bought their wares

A shop jam packed full of colorful jewelry

Cutie Steve had to have a photo of this sign….we sat in front of this store for a quick break and cup of Turkish tea and Steve said he’s renaming my business to what the sign says! His shin is now bruised…but only a tiny bit..hee hee hee

Tea and Baklava…I prefer the smaller tradtional cups for the Turkish tea which I showed you all before but these were very cool too

Treasures!!

Belly dance supply booth

This booth was all traditional instruments

Wood inlay chess, checker, and domino boxes…Very nicely done witth Mother of Pearl

Hand woven textiles made in Turkey

More Hukas

Typical of the archways throughout the market

Steve is back in the booth buying me a special necklace!!! I’ll take pix tomorrow when it gets light outside

Hand painted porcelain tiles are a popular art form here

And Pomagranate symbols are super popular too. Today I saw a yellow pommie wiht a coral blush!! Oh how gorgeous they were!!

These jewelry photos only represent a small fraction of what is out in this market

Me with the artist who made the pendant Steve got for me!! This guy was so nice!!

This is more of the silver I bought yesterday. This is their Bazaar location

The prices were 6x higher here than what I paid!! I will go back to the first guy tomorrow

Uh oh…caught in the act at one of the bead booths!!

Bling says she’s geting very hungry. See she has her own Turkish Eye amulet??

So once my crazed shopathan is over we sit down to eat at a street vendor.. OH YUM this was tasty!!

Here they are preparing the kebabs in the tgraditonal way

And back out into the market….we are heading for the spice market

Turkish evil eyes but the sinful quantities!!

Here are some hats from a felt artist who does her own felted jewelry too!!! We were very impressed with her work. I will do an entire post on her later

Here are a few of her pices

Here is the felter with a bunch of her necklaces to the left

Now comes some insanity. We were attempting to leave the market and head to catch a taxi and got side tracked for about an hour on a local group of narrow streets

This is the area I mention on the AudioBoo where it was the locals shopping market. All sorts of dry goods where here

Now this girl stood out like a sore thumb..great tattoos!

Talk about a contrast between tattoo girl and these ladies

Now we come to the spices

Here is Steve buying fresh dates…OMG we got 3 different varieties and they all taste like the finest caramel you can buy!! Sweet and slightly chewy. Not dry like the supermarket kind we see in the US