TOTALLY BAZAAR – Istanbul

We’d heard about this Grand Bazaar, one of the biggest and oldest markets in the world.

Keep your hands in your pocket, clutching your valuables. Feel the quality. Beware of imitations. Haggle and haggle hard! This place is a den of thieves and a pickpocket’s paradise – so the guidebooks say.

On the other hand, it can be fun.

There were some beautiful carpets of course, though with no chance of carrying one home with us, we stuck to admiring them.

And there’s always the colour of tea.

This is not one of those markets where merry storeholders dress themselves in their own merchandise to show customers how good it looks.

There are usually obvious reasons for this.

Oh, go on, Sir, I sure you’d look fine in those knickers.

And as for you gentlemen…how’s a girl supposed to know what a wedding dress will look like if she can’t see someone wearing it?

The coffee may not have been the cheapest available in Istanbul, but it was very good – a huge jump up on Amsterdam standard.

And it’s a wonderful place for people watching.

Time out for a game of backgammon

Mevrouw T was keen for me to try a little of the ‘Turkish viagra’ on sale below. I was concerned that a concoction containing unknown substances may be in breach of amateur athletic rules. And once you start on that stuff, who knows where it may end?

So I stuck to photography.

You will notice that Mevrouw T and I are on the road again, though this time we’ll be more on the water, cruising the Black Sea courtesy of Compagnie du Ponant.

Plenty more to come soon…