Curious Expeditions has posted a gallery of photos taken at Istanbul's KapalıçarÅŸı, or Grand Bazaar. It has been in existence since the 1400s.
Swinging platters holding steaming cups of tea zoom past us. Mustachioed men give us their best sales pitch, trying at least seven different languages; "Hallo! Guten tag? Bonjour? Buenos Dias? Konichiwa?" We wander past the slipper-merchants, mirror-merchants, leather-merchants, past the carpet-merchants, pipe-merchants, lamp-merchants, fur-merchants, gold-merchants, and then we find it. The store we didn't know was there, but once we saw it, knew we had been looking for.
The Grand Bazaar, or Covered Bazaar (Kapaliçarsi) in Istanbul is a magical city within a city. With over 60 streets and more then 4400 shops, the world's first mall is a buzzing hive of activity, catering to the shopping whims of the some 400,000 people who might visit it on a given day. It also must meet the needs of the 25,000 shopkeepers who attend to them, and a couple of small mosques can be found tucked in between the many shops.
