Eminönü. It's all about shopping.

Click here for A short walking tour through Eminönü in greater detail

Eminönü is the hustle and bustle of this enormous metropolis. It’s been the district of choice for the city's merchants forever and, while usually an exhausting place to be, it belongs to the very heart of Istanbul.

Traders have been operating here for many centuries, since the time when the district more or less encompassed Byzantine Constantinople. Bordered by the waters of the Golden Horn and Marmara Sea, the district is one of the best to walk around, home to a myriad of stalls hawking all manner of consumer goods and dotted with historic places.

Unlike younger neighbourhoods on the European side of Istanbul, Eminönü has clearl been without town planning for most if its existence. It’s easy enough to get lost among the warren of narrow lanes and crowded thoroughfares, but it’s equally likely that you’ll discover century-old ateliers, workshops and mosques that make the disorientation worthwhile.

As a visitor you’re unlikely to come away with anything more than second-rate souvenirs. However, Eminönü is the place where working class Istanbul procures everything from dried fruits and cheese to kitchen utensils and portable barbeques, and by day it must be one of the busiest shopping districts anywhere.

It’s not only human traffic that chokes Eminönü. Ferry stops on the Golden Horn transporting passengers up the Bosporus and to the Princes Island amplify the horde while vehicles clog the arteries every hour of daylight. It is not a site for quiet reflection.

The large, open square at the southern end of Galata Bridge contains the impressive Yeni Cami, one of my favourite mosques. It was the wife of Murad III, Safiye Sultan, who first suggested that Davut Ağa, the Sultan’s architect, design a place of worship in the mercantile quarter.

Criticism over the required expenditure to complete the mosque and other political dissent forced the Yeni Cami to stand incomplete for almost half a century, and it was more or less destroyed by fire in 1660. Another imperial architect decided the time was ripe to rebuild: Mustafa Ağa suggested to Valide Turhan Hadice, that work should proceed, and the New Mosue's inauguration took place five years later.

Also begun in 1660, the Mısır Çarşısı, or Spice Bazaar, is a tourist trap of the not-so-bad kind. In earlier times tt was the rent from its shops that supported maintenance of the mosque, though these days your purchases of spices and bad-quality Turkish delight will only enrich the annoying-but-charming sales people, who spend their entire working day guessing your nationality by barking at you in various tongues.

The bazaar doesn’t stock anything than cannot be found of better quality in adjoining lanes, however, if you’re short on time and have spades of patience, then go into battle with the man with over-groomed hair and a tight fluorescent shirt and get your gifts for the family in one go.

It’s behind the bazaar that Eminönü begins to feel something more 'real'. Despite the increasingly narrow thoroughfares and the stupefying density of people that converge and stream across cobbled streets, if you take your time and care little for losing your way, Eminönü is a wonderful place to explore.

Imitation designer label garments are arranged on crumbling walls. Street hawkers offer you fake Gillette Mach-3 razors that don’t cut anything but butter, and it’s impossible to find out just how many pointless battery-operated plastic pieces of garbage can be held up as indispensible time-saving kitchen implements.

Considering an American-issue camouflage design two-piece outfit for your six-year-old? Need a body-hugging, V-neck lime green T-shirt? Finally thinking about replacing the rubber floor protectors on that IKEA dining setting you bought last year? Eminönü has it.

Better still, as you ascend Mahmutpaşa Yokuş, dowdy and seemingly placid females will bowl you over in their quest for the right circumcision outfit. I kid you not. It happened to me last year.

Sünnet, as the obligatory ceremony for Muslim boys is known in Turkey, is a once-in-a-lifetime occasion when everyone’s attention will focus on you. And, you get to dress up in shiny things. I decided to attend a friend’s costume party dressed in a glittering pre-circumcision outfit; mostly because I was envious my Turkish male mates had an opportunity I would never experience.

Naturally, as a fully frown adult, fitting into the largest sünnet costume available required some deep breathing and explanation to the shopkeeper. Turks are not an inquisitive bunch, and while I’d already invented my pretext for the purchase, the shopkeeper couldn’t have cared less that a foreigner was trying wanting to try on outfits for adolescent man.

After half an hour of sorting through the finest array of polyester with tinsel-highlights, I settled on a silver-on-silver-on-silver theme. Feathered turban, sceptre, cape, cummerbund and Miss Universe-style glittery sash embroidered with ‘Wonderful’ from shoulder to waist, I felt replete. Unfortunately, no amount of grunting would get me into white satin trousers, but I still managed to get a discount if only purchasing three-quarters of the necessary costume.

Aside from circumcision outfits, there are also other garments on sale too.

Shops and stalls are crammed into every conceivable space and it’s essential to be adventurous. That dark, shadowy staircase to your left? Take it, you might find that lawn-edge trimmer you’ve been looking for since January. And you will never find another location on the planet that has a wider range of (mostly hideous) buttons and lace. Come October, an entire street is given over to Christmas decorations that makes Chinatown look lacklustre and monochrome. You can fill your garden with cyclamens, purchase a scimitar and get any number of toys that are banned under EU consumer protection laws. Wooden spice racks are there for the picking and you won’t have witnessed a more refined collection of cane furniture since 1974.

And, finally, when it all gets a little too much, head back to the Yeni Cami. At the back of the mosque, in the space between its mausoleum and the southern wall of the Mısır Çarşısı is a short row of tea gardens where you can rest your aching legs and find some much-welcome shade. Even the garrulous, pre-intermediate level English spruiking of the young waiters will be exactly the peace and quiet you deserve after an hour in this neighbourhood.

And finally, get yourself to Rustem Paşa mosque. You'll find it among the polyester, flashing light-sabres and stretch demin. Eventually. That's me under the archway. Despite how it looks, I wasn't dancing.

Right then, did I miss anything?