I’m in Heaven… well, maybe just the Heaviside Layer. (get it? “Cats”?) The Grand Bazaar was the very last stop on the Silk Road and is one of the largest ‘malls’ in the world with 4,400 shops along 64 streets accessible via 22 entrance gates. The easiest way to explain it is that the whole building is a small city. The Bazaar was first constructed in 1464 but has gone through many restorations due to extensive fires and destructive earthquakes.

In less than an hour I had secured two great buys… one a “real genuine fake”. The shopkeepers told me over and over “this is a really good one… it’s a gennnnnuine fake; no bad fakes here.” And for those who are curious – the ‘finds’ were a pair of Louis Vuitton sunglasses and then a Louis Vuitton weekender bag. (Those LV items are really addictive…) We also bought…. You guessed it… another rug for each of us. With all this completed in our first hour, we sheepishly had to return to the hotel to offload our loot and return to shopping.

We needed a break from the higher pressure Grand Bazaar shopping and headed straight for the Egyptian Spice Bazaar down at the Eminonu docks. What a hoot! We went to the Spice Market after hitting the Grand Bazaar – wow… two completely different worlds. Instead of selling cheap knock offs, these shops were selling every kind of spice imaginable. I was on a search for tea – Turkish tea is amazing. I highly recommend the apple or mint flavors if you have any way to get some. We bought some outstanding baklava (I’m gaining weight every minute I’m here) and made our way through the maze that was the Spice Bazaar.

Seemed that every shopkeeper got personally involved with some kind of shenanigans with Lee and me… At one place, we ate enough ‘samples’ to cover lunch (and only spent about $15 on merchandise). These guys were so much fun… I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard. The entire Spice Market had a different vibe than the Grand Bazaar – very interactive, very collaborative and team oriented. Pure fun.

After a first pass through the Egyptian Spice Bazaar, we walked a few short meters to the water’s edge for lunch. We had heard that boats pulled up to the shoreline and grilled their fresh catch into delicious fish sandwiches. Wow – what an experience! The boats weren’t grungy old fishing boats like I expected – they were dressed-up floating kitchens… serving up the freshest fish you can get. What fun!

We passed the rest of the afternoon shopping and then went across town to the Sulieyman Hamam for a good old fashioned Turkish Bath. A significant culture has been developed around what is known as a Hamam, the Turkish word for a Turkish Bath. It was a culture of leisure during the Ottoman period, one of the finest examples being the Çemberlitaş Hamamı. In the Ottoman Empire, many Hamams were also actually built adjacent to mosques, as part of the complex. We visited the Suleymaniye Haman because it was “family oriented” – allowing men/women in the same bathing area, and (key) allowing us to wear swimsuits. After baking in the humid room, we were scrubbed until our skin was pink… covered in foaming bubbles… and then ‘beaten like a rug’ with their aggressive massage techniques. I think Lee is going back again tomorrow (wink/wink).

We ended a perfect day with a perfect dinner… Eating out on our hotel’s terrace… only sharing the view with one other table. Absolutely fantastic weather, highly successful shopping, fabulous food, and amazing history and culture… This is a perfect week thus far. The ‘great travel karma’ continues… Tomorrow – a Bosphorus ferry ride to explore the shoreline to the north of the city!