The Spice Bazaar

Take a deep breath. Even before you step through this gate, the air smells of roasting coffee, cumin and dried fruit. You're at the Mısır Çarşısı, the Egyptian Bazaar, which foreign visitors call the Spice Bazaar.

1A market to pay for a mosque

The bazaar is part of the complex of the New Mosque, the great mosque beside you. A queen mother began it in the late 16th century, but work stalled for decades. Another powerful woman took it up again: Turhan Hatice Sultan, mother of the young Mehmed IV. After the great fire of 1660 this market was built, and its rents paid for the upkeep of the mosque, finished around 1665.

2Why Egyptian?

The name comes from the fact that it was built with revenue from the Ottoman province of Egypt. Coffee, spices and sugar from the eastern trade reached Istanbul through Egyptian ports.

In Turkish, "mısır" also means "maize", which is why it's sometimes mistranslated as the "Corn Bazaar".

Today it has some eighty-five shops. Many still sell spices, tea and Turkish delight, though jewellers and souvenir shops are steadily moving in. In the surrounding streets the market is still genuinely local: cheeses, cured meats, olives and the never-ending queue for ground coffee by the corner.

3What to look for

• The main gate, with its bands of stone and brick and its small domes.
• The New Mosque, with its large courtyard and stepped domes.
• The cone-shaped heaps of spices in the shop windows.