After seeing the Hippodrome, The Blue Mosque, The Hagia Sophie and then the Topkapi Palace, we were taken to the market in Istanbul.
On the way to the market, our Turkish Tour guide once again told us how important the carpet making industry is to their country and that he had never heard of a tour group coming to Istanbul without going to a carpet shop. He did say that he would be available to take any interested parties to a shop he knew, where we could get carpets at a “good” price.
At the market, we were given a few hours to wander around on our own and were told to meet back at a certain point to catch our bus.
Well, this market was enormous and there was so much to see!!! And of course ..... buy!!
This market covers an area of 30 hectares and there are about 4000 shops inside it. There are 18 entrances to this market area. It really is a small city on it's own. We went in through the main one and decided not to wander to far from the main “street” as such.
The entrance to the Bazaar
Inside the Bazaar
I showed some interest in a leather purse and of course was shown so many and knew that I would have to buy one before leaving the shop. I then told the guy that I was really interested in jewellery.
Well, he then led me “literally by the hand” to his “uncle” who had a jeweler shop a few meters away from his shop.
I told this gentleman that I would be interested in some diamond earrings. Of course, he showed me the most beautiful earrings. At this point, I summoned hubby, who was outside the shop smoking!!!Hubby's eyes were huge when I showed him the earrings. These were priced at 1700 Euros. I then had to quickly back out of this deal, as hubby had calmly stated that it was either the earrings or our holiday in July next year!!
Then the bartering started, and I couldn’t believe that the price had been knocked down to 1 100 Euros.
These guys just will not take no for an answer.
I then realized that I had a bit of a lever. I told my jeweler that we had in fact just purchased a very expensive carpet. He then did not force the issue too much at all thinking that we had just spent a small fortune in another one of his “relatives” shops.
Little did he know that I was referring to the carpet we had purchased in Tunisia in July.
Well, it was only a “little white lie” wasn’t it?
After a bite to eat – a Doner -in real Turkish surroundings, we walked back through the market. I then did purchase a new leather purse and two wonderful Pashmina Shawls.
More shops in the Bazaar
So colourful and exotic
Hubby had found a suitcase at one of the shops and was going to do a bit of bartering. He managed to get it for 80 Euros, so we found ourselves making our way back to the bus, dragging a suitcase behind us. We all made the most of it of course and anything we had been carrying was quickly stored inside of it.
The looks on the faces of all our fellow tour group was so funny. They were so curious as to what was inside – we had to convince them that we had in fact not bought that much.
We were then taken back to our ship, all the while, our tour guide lamenting the fact, that none of us had seen a Carpet shop.
