We spent our next day in Istanbul on our own exploring the city. We started off heading to the Grand Bazaar market. This place was truly amazing with over 4,000 little shops within the market. Most of the shopping in here is for tourists and it can be a bit overwhelming as the sales folks are quite agressive and yelling at you through the Bazaar telling you they have "the best deal" for you. After walking through the Bazaar we were feeling a bit of sensory overload and headed to the Spice Market. This market is named because hundreds of years ago traders would stop through the Ottoman empire and trade spices from all over the world in this space. There are still lots of spices sold there today, but also many other goods. It was super fun to watch the locals interact with one another and bargain with each other. The Spice Market sold pretty much any kind of food you could think of. At one point, Tom and I stumbled through the "pet section" of the market and could not get over it...there were live chickens and rabbits being sold out of cardboard boxes, puppies for sale just inches away, a large variety of lizards that I had never before seen, and, our favorite - live leeches (for any medical ailments). The market was packed full of people and you literally had to push your way through the crowds to move anywhere. We didn't get any good photos in the markets as it was literally wall to wall people and a bit difficult to do anything else but take in the market itself.
We decided we had had enough of the crowds and spent the late afternoon on a boat ride on the Bosphorus crossing over from the European side to the Asian side of Turkey. The boat ride was great and we got to see a number of beautiful palaces that were built all along the water many years ago.
We spent our evening in the Taksim neghborhood, a trendy area that is filled with more locals. And, we had dinner on the top of a tall building with a magnificent view. We could see over the entire historic district of the city which was illuminated beautifully.
