With a 600 years old past, dating back to the Byzantine age, TAHTAKALE BAZAAR is Turkey’s oldest surviving shopping center. Since the Ottoman conquest, the long and narrow street which we still see today has been hosting two lines of shops selling any kind of handcrafted products: kitchenware, textiles, lamps, wooden items, wicker chests, tea-sets, stoves, hardware etc. Tahtakale is the delightfully ramshackle area immediately to the south of the Galata Bridge. It's a world of jampacked narrow streets filled with tiny shop selling everything from imaginative packaging to freshly roasted coffee beans with not an international brand-name in sight. A true oriental bazaar, in other words, and something of an antidote to the more touristy offers of both Mısır Çarşısı and the Kapalı Çarşi (Grand Bazaar).
The great thing about Tahtakale is the way in which a variety of early Ottoman monuments, including mosques and ancient hans, are woven into the fabric of the neighbourhood. With the exception of the much-loved Rüstem Paşa Cami on its lofty perch, most of these monuments go virtually unnoticed by the shoppers thronging the streets.
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder