If you travel to Istanbul and you are not solicited to purchase carpets at least 20 times a day, you mistakenly exited the bus in Istanbul, Arkansas- not Turkey. They are everywhere, and the best of them are exquisite. They range in price from too much to " you are out of your mind", but if you have the patience and stamina to really negotiate, many visitors seem to work a deal that they feel is equitable. The Turks are the best sales people in the world I've determined. They are charming and gregarious, are good showmen and can easily weave their sales spiel into a casual conversation. I consider myself pretty skeptical and hard-edged when it comes to touts, but I found myself visiting a carpet gallery with a young man who took me on a free tour of the Blue Mosque. In the Hippodrome, a huge promenade (think of the mall in Washington) where ancient chariot races were held, we met a man who introduced himself as an American with business interests in Turkey which included a 600 employee rug mill. He married a girl from Charleston, SC, had a place in Gatlinburg, liked to vacation on Edisto Island, and lived in Florida ("here is my license"). He was wearing a Siesta Key Florida polo. He did not sell to the public only wholesale, but, if I wanted to come to his office, he would teach me about rugs. And, then he said it..."you don't have to buy anything". Honestly, he nearly had me. I' d still like to know whose Florida driver license he flashed. 

Don't misunderstand. The come-ons and the touts are all a part of an elaborate dance between the natives and the tourists. It is part of the entertainment. The best part is that you decide when it ends. Turks take no for an answer. Just be firm and walk away. No hard feelings. The supply of customers is always being replenished. I read that there were over 500,000 foreign tourists in Istanbul last year just from cruises. 15,000 came while we were there.

Istanbul is a city of about 18,000,000 people. Some large percentage of them are riding the street cars in the late afternoon. Those who are not, are waiting on the station platforms to insert themselves into one of these moving cans of Spam. Istanbul may be the best run major city I've ever seen or just run better than any major I've visited. I don't know which. It is clean and safe, and getting around is very easy. Besides street cars which seem to run every five minutes or less, there is an extensive bus system and a subway. The subway network is expanding very slowly because whichever direction they try to extend it, the workers dig up some ancient ruin or other. Apparently, it is all quite a bother. They may have had a lot better luck if they had decided to build the city on a greenfield site. 

As I mentioned earlier, Istanbul is an exotic city while also being very cosmopolitan and chic. It is ageless and modern at the same time.