istanbul

It has been often heard that bargaining for Turkish people is a popular national sport; this summer we made sure this is completely true! We visited and shopped in two bazaars in Istanbul - Grand Bazaar and Spice or Egyptian Bazaar. The first one of them, the Grand Bazaar is a complete craziness - streets covered with painted vaults for numerous blocks, thousands of shops that flicker in any possible colour, items stored in numerous shelves, talkative sellers (100% male) who talk to you in Russian and English and ask you to come in to immediately start "manipulating" with you.

The idea to go to a Turkish bath or hamam belonged to two ladies from our Istanbul trip group. As nothing like that was mentioned in the programme, we were not prepared for this idea, but immediately accepted it being driven by curiosity. Our guide Ibrahim immediately agreed to organize a trip to Suleymaniye Hamam in the evening, which is located next to Suleymaniye Mosque. The bath was designed and built in 1550 by architect Sinan. This is the only bath that men and women can attend together because it is just for tourists, locals never go there.