Kemeralti Bazaar, Izmir

Kemeralti follows the curve of a harbour that was filled in centuries ago, which is why its main artery bends the way it does. It grew from the seventeenth century into a district rather than a building: covered lanes of gold and textiles, hans where merchants stored and stabled, small mosques, and the synagogues of the old Jewish quarter along Havra Sokagi, with food throughout. Izmir eats differently from Istanbul. Breakfast is boyoz, a layered Sephardic pastry taken with a hard-boiled egg, and gevrek, the local simit, thinner than the Istanbul version. Later come kumru sandwiches, sambali and coffee in the courtyard of the eighteenth-century Kizlaragasi Hani.

What you actually see

• Havra Sokagi - the old market street of the Jewish quarter, still lined with food stalls.
• Boyoz and gevrek - Izmir's own breakfast pastries, sold from morning carts and bakeries.
• Kizlaragasi Hani - an eighteenth-century han with coffee tables filling its courtyard.
• The fish and pickle lanes - salt fish, olives and tursu sold by weight.

When to go

Spring and autumn; Izmir in July and August is hot and the covered lanes hold it. Mornings are best for the food stalls, which sell out. Much of the bazaar shuts on Sundays and quietens sharply on public holidays. Give yourself a full half-day and accept that you will get lost at least once.

Honest expectations

It is a working market rather than a restored one: uneven paving, scaffolding on the hans, cables overhead and shops that repeat each other for streets at a time. Signage is poor and phone maps struggle under the awnings. Boyoz tastes plain if you expected something rich. Weekday afternoons the lanes fill with delivery trolleys.

Nearby

Konak square and its clock tower, the Agora excavation and the waterfront at Alsancak.