Istanbul: Things, Lots of Things, Mostly Edible
Friday, April 18, 2014 at 12:51AM 
The markets, shops, and bazaars of Istanbul are full of a kaleidoscopic array of things . . . lots of things . . . like these wonderful tea sets. We bought that very purple-tasseled one right there.
Beautiful things: Turkish tea sets.
We spent seven days in Istanbul, and I believe we spent half of our time snooping in shops and market stalls.
There were myriad things to look at, buy, and of course, photograph.
Lamps, lamps, lamps. These shops made us continually recalculate our baggage weight! Should we buy, or not. We didn't get any of these . . . this time.
There were some very interesting shops in Istanbul . . . like this quill pen shop. You don't see these too much any more.
They have nice soap in Istanbul.
Very nice, and aromatic, soap. We bought several different scented bars.
Woven and knitted things outside The Grand Bazaar.
A Turkish flag hawker hidden in his wares.
There was no shortage of trinkets at the trinket shops. These are made for tourists, although I saw plenty of Turks purchasing these trinkets too. An exploitation of cultural iconography.
Traditional Turkish blue glass 'evil eye' bobbles were everywhere in Istanbul.
The trinket shops were interesting, but the GOLD SHOPS were, well, dripping in gold like some potentate's secret treasure room!
The variety of things for sale in the bazaars was incalculable.
15th century Head Shop! Also the only merchant using white light to show his wares . . . they stood out like a fire in the night.
Need to dress your harem dancers? No problem, there's a shop for that.
We spent some time perusing the fabric shops. We brought home a nice tablecloth for the kitchen table.
I bought the Black Harley-Davidson Istanbul t-shirt here. Cool.
It was the spice shops, and The Egyptian Spice Market of Istanbul, that really had fascinating 'things' . . . .
Spice shop array.
The Egyptian Spice Market of Istanbul (Mısır Çarşısı), selling spices, nuts, potions, teas, powders, and dried everything since 1660. Amazing.
I spoke to the owner of this shop who said his family has held this exact location in The Spice Market since 1660, 355 years!
Dried fruits, some stuffed with nuts (my favorite), and mountains of nuts (my favorite) we fantastic! We brought back a niece selection of these.
Figs stuffed with walnuts . . . I cannot imagine anything better to eat on this planet . . . OK . . . maybe durian or mango and sticky rice . . . but these are right up there!
I took way too many walnut stuffed fig photos. These are but a few of the really good ones. Notice the walnut stuffed dates nearby: also yummie.
These walnut stuffed dried apricots were also marvelous. The snackage here was astonishing!
A strange twist: right in the middle of the spice market was what looked like a wedding dress shop. Complete incongruity! A strange dream.
Nuts and dried apricots, dates, and figs. Wow. Just WOW. These constitute 74% of my normal, everyday snackage.
The displays in The Spice Market were works of edible Art.
Dried whatnot . . . perhaps some kind of flower petal for tea-making.
Olives! The Olives . . . . were . . . to . . . . DIE for!
Fancy some tea? The tea stalls were fantastic and brought about thoughts of ancient ships bringing these, and the spices, to Istanbul markets for further distribution throughout Europe.
Beautiful sage tea. The color!!!
There were candies of every imaginable hue in the Bazaars, but it was the Turkish Delight shops and stalls that had the corner on satisfying the globe's sweet tooth.
Enjoy this slide show of the edible things of Istanbul!
If I take a lot of diabetes medication, I can get away with trying a little square of Turkish Delight once a day. And did.
At a Turkish Delight shop on a cloudy day in Istanbul.
Each of these different types of Delight are ridiculously delicious. The slice off a piece any size you want. Nice.
The Delight shops were every five or six shops apart . . . calling out to you to submit yourself to a diabetic collapse.
As it turns out, there are all kinds of delights in a Turkish Delight shop. Some sell good coffee and baked baklava-like things . . . crazy sweet with honey.
These will kill you with sweetness.
Every 50 meters there is a shop like this with stacks of baked and assembled and rolled, and coated delights.
Baklava-ish temptations. They know how to make desserts in Istanbul, that's for sure.
A stack of pistachio-filled baklava rolls. Oh My God!
I got a headache just looking at these.
If there wasn't enough honey IN YOUR Baklava, you could buy more and spread it on yourself! Incredible.
We were very happy when we found the fresh fruit stands and shops. Pomegranate and orange juice is very thirst quenching . . . .
. . . especially after a really good Turkish pizza(!) made with twisted cheese:
Twisted Turkish cheese. Mighty fine.
Turkish Efes beer is not too bad. Not bad at all.
Dr. Jeff Harper
Not everything im Istanbul is edible or found in the Bizaars:
Grand Bizaar door.
Of course, I have to photograph old doors and windows, as is my custom.
The toilet at the coffee shop was upstairs.
Straight ut of my camera!
I was stopped in my tracks at this art gallery displaying a two meter gold plated giant conk shell. The sayig, You don't see THAT every day," came quickly to mind. Art.
I would also be stopped by archectural detail.
A 3rd century Crusader bell.
A Bysantine inscription at the Aya Sofia. Things.
An old heatng radiator . . . brought back a strange memory of my childhood in Frankfurt, Germany in 1955.
The city was filling up with flowers . . . as the International Flower Festival was only weeks away.
The tulips were in full bloom in all the parks.
Many of the non-edible things from Istanbul . . . in a slide show:
Although we met many, many wonderful and helpful Turkish people, the one bad THING about Istanbul were the taxi's that tried to cheat us. We made this guy stop on the highway and let us out when we discovered he was adding charges every time he shifted into 3rd gear! Unfortunately, it left us with a bad feeling about Istanbul.
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