One of the great things about staying at Sari Konak is starting the day right with breakfast in the open courtyard by the house. Breakfast was a turkish spread of fresh bread, olives, nuts, feta cheese, tomatoes, eggs and tea/coffee. They also made a hot chocolate for me on request.
Today we headed for the bazaar area of Istanbul. Taking the tram to Eminonu, we walked towards the Spice Bazaar. Along the street shoe polish guys with their elaborate kits offered their services.
The Spice or Egyptian Bazaar is well known for the spice shops. It also has souvenir shops and textile outlets, jewellery shops and a well known perfume or attar shop called Arifoglu located at No. 31. It is a smaller and more manageable version of the Grand Bazaar.
We bought sweet paprika,pepper pods, local saffron, three types of tea, zahatar, etc. The find of the bazaar is a shop called Pinar (not the one in the picture below). It is on the right had side as you enter the bazaar from the front, that is, the seaside entrance, about 50 m into the bazaar. On the outside are pictures of the shop owner with the title "The Turkish Al Pacino" and with some celebrities. This shop is the only one that will sell genuine Spanish and Iranian saffron by weight. The others have ready sealed jars but one cannot guarantee the quality of the product. Here they weigh the saffron in front of you so you get a good chance to see and smell the saffron. Very expensive, but well worth it.
After the Spice Bazaar we headed to Hamdi Restaurant for lunch. Every morning we would ask Sari Konak to make lunch and dinner reservations for us since we had a fairly good idea of the restaurants we wanted to visit. Hamdi is one where at lunch time getting a table without a reservation is difficult. Its traditional turkish fare, I enjoyed the Lentil Soup and Dolmas, while Gordon enjoyed the Kababs. While reserving try to ask for a table on the tiny balcony, there seem to be just 4 tables or so, and the view is great.
Appetites satiated we headed to the Grand Daddy of Bazaars, the Kapali Carsi or Grand Bazaar. It is a covered bazaar and hence has a specific closing time, so best be aware of this, one does not want to get locked in for the night. The streets leading up to and spilling over around the bazaar also have many interesting shops. There are many souvenir, lamp, jewellery, textile and carpet shops. We had been warned about how crowded and claustrophobic it would be but as is evident from below, its very manageable. Most shops have a far better map of the bazaar than in the guidebooks showing specific areas that deal with specific kinds of wares, so its advisable to get one of these to give some structure to the browsing.
At the end of the day we were bazaared out, and after heading back to the Sari Konak for a quick freshening up, we set off for dinner to Meditrina. This was a place that was featured in the NY Times. Its well off the well beaten tourist track, in Ortakamii. We took the tram to Kabatas and then took a cab to the restaurant. They do great Italian cuisine and have an amazing view of the lights changing on the Bosphorus Bridge and the lit up mosque. Well worth it, and try and get a table by the window for this great view.
Other sights we would have liked to cover in the Bazaar area include :
1. Suleymaniye Mosque : Renowned for it relative simplicity as compared to its contemporaries, the mosque was undergoing renovation at the time of our visit.
2. Rustom Pasa Camii : Known for its ornate tilework
3. Yeni Camii or New mosque : just opposite the tram stop at Eminonu, again for impressive tilework and a nice mihrab.
4. Book Bazaar : would make for an interesting browse for old etchings,prints and books.
5. Beyazit Square : just next to the book bazaar and the Istanbul university. Known for its many cafes and festive atmosphere.
