The Kapalıçarşı isn't really a market in the way Borough or Kadıköy are markets. It's a fifteenth-century covered city — sixty streets, four thousand shops, four hundred years of being the centre of Mediterranean trade — and at 9am, the hour locals come, you can finally see what it actually is.
Two and a half kilometres of weaving, ninety minutes if you let it. Start at Beyazıt tram and enter Çarşıkapı right as the shutters go up. The first ten minutes is the Cevahir Bedesteni — the original Byzantine-vaulted core, the only part of the bazaar that was already standing when Mehmed II took the city. Goldsmiths and antiques are still where they've always been.
Push north to Zincirli Han, one of the surviving caravanserais opening off the main bazaar — Ottoman-era inn around a central courtyard, now carpet workshops and a quiet café. The hans are the bazaar's hidden second floor.
Exit through the Nuruosmaniye gate. Sultan Mahmud's 1755 baroque mosque is directly in front of you, and the Çemberlitaş tram is two minutes north. Closed Sundays.
