Grand Bazaar (Kapalıçarşı)

Come on a Sunday and the gates of the Grand Bazaar will be locked. Monday to Saturday it opens around 09:00 and shuts at 19:00, with no ticket required. The cost is your attention: the place is noisy, easy to get lost in and packed with people keen to sell you something.

Key information

There are over 20 gates. The handiest are the Nuruosmaniye Gate, facing Sultanahmet, and the Beyazit Gate, by the tram. Agree on one of them as a meeting point.

History in brief

The first vaulted hall, the Cevahir Bedesten, was built by Mehmed II between 1455 and 1461 as a place to keep and sell valuable goods. Shop streets spread out around it and were roofed later, until the entire quarter turned into a single covered market. Repeated fires and an 1894 earthquake damaged it, so most of the vaults overhead are 19th-century repairs. It is still a working market where the city's jewellers, carpet dealers and wholesalers do genuine business, not just a street for tourists.

What to look at and buy

• The Old Bedesten, in the middle, for antiques, silver, old coins and copper. It is calmer than the main lanes.
• Kalpakcilar Caddesi, the main thoroughfare from Beyazit to Nuruosmaniye, full of jewellers.
• Zincirli Han and other old caravanserai courtyards off the side lanes, where craftsmen still mend silver and gold.
• Carpets and kilims, plus textiles, towels, leather, lamps and ceramics. Quality runs from museum standard to mass-produced imports, sometimes in shops next door to each other.
• Tea and coffee: tea boys who carry their trays through the alleys, and old cafés hidden in the hans.

Bargaining

Haggling is expected almost everywhere, apart from jewellers who sell gold by weight and a small number of fixed-price shops. Look around and compare before you buy. Offer a figure you would be content to pay instead of asking for a percentage discount, and be ready to walk away. Cash tends to get you a lower price than a card. If you are offered tea while looking at carpets, it is hospitality, and you are not obliged to buy.

Be careful with anyone who stops you in the street to take you to "a friend's shop"; their commission is in the price. Remember too that "genuine" and "handmade" are claims, not promises. For a big purchase, get an invoice, and for a carpet, a certificate of origin.

A local guide who knows what things should cost is useful. The private shopping tour of the Grand Bazaar and Spice Market runs four hours with hotel pick-up and sticks to trusted sellers. For a fuller day, the full-day Old City tour with tickets and lunch visits Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and Topkapi Palace and finishes at the Grand Bazaar.

When to go

Weekday mornings from 09:00 to 11:00 are the quietest. Saturdays fill with local shoppers. Late afternoon works for browsing, but traders start packing away at around 18:30. In summer the covered lanes are cooler than the streets outside, so the bazaar makes a good midday stop.

Tips

• Carry your bag in front of you where the lanes are crowded.
• Save an offline map; phone reception under the vaults is poor.
• Lots of shops ship overseas. Ask for the shipping cost in writing before you settle the final price.
• Toilets are marked "WC" and charge a small fee.
• To combine it with the Spice Bazaar, walk 15 minutes downhill through the Mahmutpasa market streets.

Our Istanbul destination page shows what else is close to the bazaar.

Frequently Asked Questions