Wide walkways in the Grand Bazaar had their origin in the 1400s, when it was built on the trade crossroads between Asia and Europe so camels could carry goods to merchants inside..

Relatives asked if I was frightened or felt threatened during my visit to Istanbul, Turkey at the end of a Mediterranean cruise I took with my daughter in October.
The Thanksgiving Day question surprised me, since these are well-traveled, sophisticated people not given to the general fear expressed at the presence of Muslim people .
I felt neither frightened nor threatened during my short visit, I told them. In fact my daughter and I both experienced many sincere gestures of kindness and hospitality, to which I am ashamed to admit, we both at first responded with suspicion.
The largest city in Turkey has a population of 13.5 million, many of them Muslim, and straddles the Bosphoros, a busy waterway that marks the boundary between Europe and Asia. It's in Northwest Turkey, not far from the border of Greece and Bulgaria, but a long way from either Syria or Iraq, to the country's southeast. In fact, while we were aboard the Crystal Serenity peacefully sailing in the Adriatic and the Aegean seas, we'd both received urgent emails warning us that Syrians were crossing the border into Turkey to escape the turmoil in their own country and didn't we really want to head home right away rather than lingering overnight in Istanbul??

Dazzling lamps were among the purchases we wanted to make but didn't.

It's sweet to know your friends are worried  but we were both well-informed about what was happening in the world and unconcerned that it would affect us in Istanbul.

We had just 15 hours to spend in this great world city and were planning to shop the Grand Bazaar.
Part of that 15 hours had to be sleep time, since we arrived around noon and would depart our hotel at the godawful hour  of 3 a.m. to catch an early morning flight to Paris. We knew that we'd have to save a visit to the Blue Mosque, the Haghia Sofia and other historic wonders of Istanbul for another time. My daughter booked us an hotel in the heart of the old city, where Byzantium rose 2,000 years ago, preceding Constantinople which itself preceded Istanbul.
Our magic carpet ride began once we left our bags in the hotel  which turned out to be comfortable and just about perfect  - and a set out on foot to reach the Grand Bazaar, a dozen blocks away.

We passed street vendors slicing lamb for shish kabob from a slowly rotating cylinder of meat and others squeezing whole pomagranates into juice for waiting matrons. We stood in awe outside the many minarets around the Haghia Sofia when the call to prayer rang out from the towers. We ogled store windows and rug merchants, put our noses to one window with all kinds of lokum, also known as Turkish Delight, and stopped to photograph the entry to a Turkish bath. Soon, by some instinct found only among avid shoppers, we had negotiated the labyrinthe streets and were at one of the four main gates to the Grand Bazaar.
Our greatest adventure was about to begin.

Ottoman slippers with curled up toes, lush purple leather boots and a handcrafted turquoise fabric that has since become a bedspread were among the purchases my daughter made ion the Grand Bazaar. She bought the bag to carry them home.

I'm now preparing the Dec. 9 travel section, which will largely be devoted to shopping at the Grand Bazaar, and I'll update you now and then here. 

I'm home now, recuperating from surgery, but will join a cruise leaving from Venice on Sept. 30 - just a little more than a week away.

I'm pretty wobbly after general anesthesia and quite vulnerable right now   - a state of being that gives me lots of empathy for those who have given up traveling altogether. The familiar comforts of home are pretty attractive when one is as impaired as I feel today.

But giving up on travel is not on my agenda. I might be somewhat more challenged now, but I've done my homework and am confident I'll not only have great fun but will come back with a couple of stories for News-Herald readers.
I'm joining the Crystal Serenity for an 8-day voyage among a pair of Greek islands, to Kotor in Montenegro and on to Istanbul before a flight back home.

I've  sailed with Crystal Cruise Lines before and know that  I can expect to see many of the worrisome details of travel taken care of. They know when I am arriving and someone will meet me at the Venice airport to take me and my luggage to the ship so I have no concerns about having to roll my bag over bridges spanning canals or aboard the water taxis called vaporettos. I've done that before when traveling to Venice independently and know what a hassle that can be.
Crystal is also very attentive in letting passengers know just what they'll face on shore excursions. If  there's lots of walking over uneven or hilly terrain, you'll know it before you sign up. If it's smart to carry water ashore, you'll find out before you leave the ship - and it's pretty likely that bottled water will be available  to take ashore. If you choose to go off on your own, you will have access to good maps and advice about  shopping streets and cafes for a lunch ashore as well as areas best avoided.

At first I might not have all my usual energy,  but I'll find my favorite mask maker in Venice and stock up on gift masks.   I'll visit Ravenna, in Italy, for the first time and am hoping to arrange a sidetrip to Bologna, the hometown of my friend Loretta Paganini. As a wine lover, I couldn't miss the Temple of Dionysus on the sacred island of Delos, just a 20-minute boat ride from Mykonos where I'll be on Oct. 7. If I get tuckered I'll have two days at sea to rest on deck or arrange a spa treatment and by the time I get to Istanbul I should be fully energized for the Blue Mosque and shopping the Grand Bazaar.

I hope some of you caught my Twitter posts when I first learned of this great-deal cruise and perhaps you booked, too, and I'll see you on board. For the first time ever, Crystal is offering a handful of six-to- eight day voyages in the southern Mediterranean between now and mid-November - an exceptionally nice time of year in this part of the world. Best yet, those who book before Oct. 31 get the cruise for just $1,595 -an uncommonly good price for such an upscale cruise line. Crystal, in fact, has been voted as best in the world in many cruise surveys.  Airfare is extra, of course, but thanks to sharp-eyed travel agent Jennifer Fried at Traveline, our roundtrip air was a little more than $800 each.
So I'll be extending summer in the sunny Mediterranean this year. Check out the options at www.CrystalCruises.com.