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Bazaars & Shopping

ÇARŞILAR

The Grand Bazaar shuts on Sundays and the Spice Bazaar does not. How bargaining works, and where the city actually shops.

A Grand Bazaar arcade strung with red flags, shopfronts running away beneath the painted vault
Photograph by Hugh Llewelyn, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

The one fact that ruins itineraries

The Grand Bazaar is closed on Sundays and on public holidays. The Spice Bazaar is open. A very large number of three-day plans put the Grand Bazaar on the wrong day and discover it at the gate.

They are two different buildings
A Grand Bazaar lane hung with lamps and bags, a porter pushing a trolley through the crowd
Photograph by Mike McBey, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

They are twenty minutes' walk apart and constantly confused, including by photo libraries. The Grand Bazaar is enormous — sixty-odd streets, some four thousand shops — under a tall painted vault, and it sells gold, carpets, leather and lamps. The Spice Bazaar is one L-shaped hall of about eighty shops selling spices, nuts, tea and lokum.

The Spice Bazaar's painted vault above a dense crowd, the L-shaped hall running away in both directions
Photograph by Daniel López García from Madrid, España, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

How bargaining works

On tourist goods, the first number is an opening position and everyone in the transaction knows it. It is not rude to counter; it is rude to counter and then walk off having never intended to buy. Take the tea if it is offered. If haggling makes you miserable, the fixed-price shops in the streets outside are usually cheaper anyway.

Where the city actually shops

The streets between the two bazaars, and the ones behind the Spice Bazaar towards the Golden Horn, are the real market: hardware, coffee, cheese, pickles, wedding dresses, whole lanes of one trade. Nothing is aimed at you there, which is exactly why it is worth an hour.

The painted vaulting of the Spice Bazaar ceiling, red and gold arabesques between the ribs
Photograph by Afurkanakin, Wikimedia Commons, CC0

Why the Grand Bazaar Closes on Sundays, and Where to Go

by Access Istanbul Editorial Team
Entrance of Grand Bazaar, Istanbul, Turkey (Ank Kumar)

Why the market closes The Grand Bazaar closes every Sunday. Its shopkeepers treat it as their one full day off in a six-day working week. The closure is not religious. It is a labour pattern, set by the market’s own tradesmen, and it applies on public holidays too. The bazaar traces back to a covered … Read more