As any respectable Middle Eastern culture, I knew going to the local bazaars would make for the best time of my entire trip. In fact, apart from the mosques and the alluring Istanbul mysticism that so unequivocally fascinates me, visiting the bazaars is my most desired activity in this part of the world.
I ventured into both the Spice Bazaar and Grand Bazaar – not for the shopping experience itself – but for a photo walk. I did not buy heavy gold chains or lavish Middle Eastern chandeliers, but I did taste the local food and hence the ever-present Turkish delights – which I was already quite familiar with (Romania is a not so distant neighbor to Turkey, and growing up, we had plenty of Turkish imports to taste and purchase).
In the traditional sense, Turkish delights stand for the Lokum sweets originating from the Ottoman Empire, a gel composition made out of starch and sugar; however, for the sake of ALL Turkish traditional goods, I will refer to not only the sweets, but to the Turkish tea, coffee, gozleme, as well as the material goods: the intricate high-quality rugs, the opulent yellow gold jewelry, the dazzling ceramics, as well as the splendid hanging lanterns.
I scoured the bazaars for unique souvenirs. I utterly fell in love with the hanging lanterns, however I settled for a small ceramic magnet, a white and blue ceramic plate and a Turkish pillow cover. The charming tea cups – had they not been so similar with my Moroccan mint tea glasses – would have surely been mine.
Spice Bazaar was overwhelming with countless types of tea, one better looking than the other. I decided for some pomegranate tea, and lots of Mehmet Efendi coffee.
What proved most difficult – apart from the constant badgering to stop and buy something, or the occasional “What’s your name, let’s be friends” type of encounters – was taking shots of all the Turkish goods I could not take my eyes off of: the ceramics, rugs and hanging lanters in particular. I skipped the gold at the Grand Bazaar, but I did sneak in some illicit glorious pictures.
As for the Turkish pancake – gozleme – I tried one, right before my departure out of Istanbul. Did you?
