My weekend has been busy but fun with some commitments with friends. And I know it's Sunday and not Friday, but as the saying goes, better late than never, this is my participation in this week's #MarketFriday.
This week I'm sharing some memories of our visit to the Istanbul Spice Market on our trip to that city in December 2019.
Istanbul, among many other things, is famous for its great markets. And for me, a must-see is the Spice Market, also known as the Egyptian Bazaar. In Turkish, it is called Mısır Çarşısı. It is not as big as the Grand Bazaar, but I liked it more. We visited it on more than one occasion, as it was relatively close to Sirkeci, where we were staying. The bazaar is in Faith district.
Every time we passed by, the market was crowded. The building was made up of large roofed aisles with stores, some selling textiles, and a few jewelry stores.
But, above all, there were many stores selling spices, hence the name of the market, and also different types of tea and Turkish sweets.
At many of the stalls, as you walked through the aisles, they urged you to come in and try some. We, of course, wanted to buy a few things to bring home, but it was overwhelming between so many stalls to decide which one to enter. And then we arrived at Masala.
Shopping at Masala
My son and I were looking at the varieties of tea in front of a stall when one of the vendors approached asking if we wanted to smell a tasty fruit tea. He meant tea mixed with mango.
We were amused because mango grows almost everywhere here. The vendor spoke a little Spanish, he even said he had a Venezuelan friend. And yes, maybe it was part of his sales strategy, hehe.
And we went into the store while the husband stayed behind to take pictures and videos.
There were so many spices, and it was hard not to want to take them all. Also, it doesn't help that they try to sell them all to you, hehe.
But we opted to take some Baharat, which are spices blends. We bought some for seasoning meats, which I still miss these days because we ran out. Some to use in salads, and we brought one that we loved that went great with potatoes.
We also bought some tea. At the place, they gave us to try a tea called Love. It was quite sweet and very aromatic, and we liked it. But we brought home a very spicy one that was sold as an energizer and also a tea that was a mixture of matcha with eucalyptus. It was great for when you had a cold, and I would love to buy it again.
Then there was the Turkish Delight. And with them, I almost lost my mind.
And of course, we had to buy some to take home. And some to share with my sister-in-law and her family, who we would be visiting after our trip to Istanbul.
Turkish delicacies are exquisite and if you ever get a chance to try them, do it.
And they also had different varieties of coffee. We didn't buy any of these, even though I like Turkish coffee, I don't know how to make it.
We ended up buying much more than we thought, and we left loaded with spices, tea, and Turkish delicacies. And if at the time I doubted that we had perhaps overspent, looking back, everything we bought was worth it, and if I came back today, I would have let myself be carried away again by the shopping bug.
As for the prices, I do not remember how much we spent in total. But as a reference, the prices that appear in the photos are in Turkish Liras. And at that time, in December 2019, 1 dollar was equal to approximately 5.80 Turkish Liras.
This is my participation for this week's #MarketFriday started by @dswigle.
Thank you for reading.
All photos were taken during our visit to Istanbul in December 2019. Some are with an iPhone 7, and some are images taken from video clips with a Canon 60d.
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