Istanbul - Topkapi Palace & Grand Bazaar 


 

Istanbul… We arrived in Istanbul at 2ish on Saturday… We took a trip to an old Palace called Topkapi Palace (I think that’s how its spelled?) Anyway this was the palace where the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire once lived… It was pretty cool, they had tons of treasure like some 80 karat diamond… and boxes full of emeralds and stuff… That was sort of cool… But they also had a rotting arm in a golden gauntlet that they clamed was John the Baptists arm? No one could explain to me how they’re sure it’s his arm however?



After that we headed to the Grand Bazaar… Our first stop was to a carpet shop where we were told how they were made and how to spot high quality rugs… They gave us apple tea which was tasty! It turns out that you have to be rich to buy a rug…



We wondered through the bazaar and looked at some of the shops… The sales people are extremely “in your face” to try to get you to buy something. For example one guy had a package of 5 pairs of socks… He kept saying 5 pairs of socks $20… Anyway I kindly explained that I didn’t need socks… And he said… 5 pairs of socks $15! I just laughed and said again that I didn’t need sock and we kept walking. 5 minutes later he was following us again and he said we could have “all 5 of the beautiful pairs of socks for only $8”. Anyway this went on and on… and in the end I got 5 pairs of socks for $2.50 which is a pretty good deal even if I didn’t need the socks..

 

Posted: Sat - July 30, 2005 at 09:20 AM          

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