With its rich 500-year history, Istanbul's Grand Bazaar has quite a story to tell. This oversize luxury volume takes a comprehensive look at the world's most vibrant marketplace, with hundreds of dazzling original photographs by Laziz Hamani and narrative by an Istanbul-born Ottoman art expert and collector.

You can count on Rick Steves to tell you what you really need to know when traveling in Istanbul. Following Rick's self-guided tours, you'll experience the wonders of East and West in this fascinating city—the capital of two great empires. Explore one of the world's largest domed churches, haggle with merchants in the exotic Grand Bazaar, and discover the secrets of the sultan's harem in Topkapi Palace. Wander through monumental mosques, shop along sophisticated avenues, and watch whirling dervishes in action. Cruise the Bosphorus for a quick trip to Asia, and end the day relaxing in a Turkish bath. Rick's candid, humorous advice will guide you to good-value hotels and restaurants in delightful neighborhoods. You'll learn how to get around on the city's trams and ferries, and which sights are worth your time and money. More than just reviews and directions, a Rick Steves guidebook is a tour guide in your pocket.

From cultural heritage to inspired contemporary jewelry, this book is a journey into the ateliers of the master artisans in the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul. This lavishly illustrated book provides an intriguing glimpse inside the luminous world of Fatma Altinbas, an anthropology professor and the creative mind behind the heritage jewelry brand Meváris. Born into a family of gold merchants, she had the privilege of growing up with the Grand Bazaar, immersed in the wonderfully rich history of Istanbul. Her distinctive approach as an academically minded entrepreneur is to marry the city's legacy of impeccable craftsmanship with new and alluring contemporary designs. This book is a celebration of the magnificent city of Istanbul and this designer's relationship with her creative culture. From the floral motifs in Ottoman kaftans to the enduring Byzantine architectural marvels, the beautiful imagery traces the historical and contemporary influences that have shaped the unique artistic vision guiding Meváris's exquisite jewelry creation. It offers unique aesthetic reinterpretations of Istanbul's heritage and its renowned Grand Bazaar through a celebration of past and present, and the colors and cultural wealth of the contemporary city.

Planning to travel to Istanbul and want to know what adventures will await you? Already been and want to know more? "Inside Out In Istanbul" is a collection of short stories about life in Istanbul by author Lisa Morrow. Lisa first went to Turkey in 1990, where she stayed in the small village of Göreme for three months during the Gulf War. Since that time she has travelled back and forth between Turkey and Australia many times, living and working in Istanbul and Kayseri in central Turkey, before finally settling for good in Istanbul. The stories in this collection take you beyond the world famous sights of Istanbul to the shores of Asia, to an Istanbul that is vibrantly alive with the sounds of street vendors, wedding parties, weekly markets and more. Come behind the tourist façades and venture deep into this sometimes chaotic, often schizophrenic but always charming city.

Following My Thumb follows the wandering, rambling, bumbling travels of Gabriel Morris from 1990-2000. In the summer of 1990, at the age of 18, he sets off to Europe with his over-sized backpack, thumb guiding the way. He hitchhikes the entire length of Great Britain, sleeps in barns, on bridges and beaches and under benches, explores the Greek Isles, sneaks into a Parisian movie theater, spends a night at the center of the Place de la Concorde roundabout, and more. In Part 2 of the book, he spends the bulk of the mid-1990s as a wandering traveler back home in the United States, searching for something elusive: a place to call home, a community, love, adventure, meaning, purpose. He both finds and loses all to varying degrees as he attends tribal Rainbow Gatherings in the woods, falls in and out of love on the road, lives on farms and communes, and spends several months in an idyllic valley, far from civilization in the Hawaiian rainforest. The book culminates with his amazing and thought-provoking travels in the mystical land of India. ,

The bazaar quarter of Istanbul is a mirror of the city itself: many-faceted and hectic, extraordinarily beautiful and chaotic at the same time. On the historic peninsula, centuries-old market halls and mosques share space with kiosks and new concrete buildings. Spacious stores with brightly lit window displays compete with tiny cluttered shops in dark alleys. This is a place where the Thousand and One Nights and global chic come together, a meeting place of opposites.

When the dream of living in a foreign country is rudely shattered by gritty reality, there are two choices. Turn tail and run or bravely face what life throws at you. Welcome to a roller coaster ride through the unpredictability of life in Turkey while struggling with the demands of home and away. After repeated visits to Turkey, the first during the Gulf War, Lisa Morrow left Australia in 2010 with her partner Kim to settle in Istanbul. Having travelled extensively throughout the country as well as already having lived in both Istanbul and Central Turkey for a few years, she was sure the transition would be simple. However while Turkish culture seems easy to understand, you only have to scratch away the surface and the complexities can be overwhelming. When they arrived in Istanbul Lisa was still trying to overcome the effects of her mother's death and struggled to know who she was. Her feelings of uncertainty were exacerbated by having to deal with Turkish real estate agents, bureaucracy and cultural difference, as well as friendships with Turks who seemed the same as her but were in fact very different. The stress of getting settled was only just starting to abate when she had to rush Kim to hospital and then received bad news from home. Waiting for the Tulips to Bloom: Adrift in Istanbul is an honest and engaging account of life in Istanbul, written by an expat who uses her training in sociology to take the reader right into the heart of Turkish culture