Today we walked to the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul - the Bazaar dates back to 1455 and is a reflection of the many peoples and cultures that came together historically in this region. The bazaar is huge: 61 streets, 3000 shops, and 300,000 visitors a day. While the shops are often mixed, it is organized into different secions, like carpets, jewelry, ceramics, and leather. This  Map gives you a bit of an idea of the many parts and sections. the light stores in particular are a real treat and as you can see, for most of us, the purchaes are starting to accumulate. After a couple of hours in the bazaar, we got a nice walking tour of some of the surrounding shopping sections, used by the local people.

After some good stoop sitting - this has become one of our more favorite things- , we enjoyed dinner at the hotel. Tonight there was a wonderful lemon soup on the menu, and we were all treated to Bolong's insightful and humorous vision on life and love:) 

Tomorrow will be our last full day in Istanbul - we will spend it going to a lovely park Emirgan, just north of Istanbul where we will get to enjoy the outdoors as well as see a few small museums. the, in the evenin, our closing dinner in a local ethnic restaurant. We got to see so many things, but also missed a few other experiences, all the more reason to come back.