Traditional

VAN According to the poet Cemal Süreyya, “breakfast should have something to do with happiness”. In that case, “Happiness should have something to do with Van,” would be the words of the gourmet traveller who knows this …

Cleanliness has always been a priority in both Turkish and Islamic society. There have been hamam (Turkish Bath) or public bath houses in Turkey since medieval times. The tradition reached its height during Ottoman times. Bathing would become a …

Alcohol is freely available in most Turkish restaurants. There are also many pubs or bars especially in big cities and touristic resorts. It is only if you are heading to particularly conservative areas that you may have to check whether or not resta…

Throughout the whole history, in almost every culture and religion, the eye figure has been considered as a powerful talisman to defy the evil forces. In Turkey, also, you'll meet plenty of eyes looking at you. It is very common in the Turkish cultur…

Turkish Delight or "lokum" in Turkish is a sweet confection made from starch and sugar. Turkish Delight is often flavored with rosewater and lemon, the former giving it a characteristic pale pink color. Lokum has a soft, jelly-like and some…

The first carpets were those made by the nomadic Turkish tribes who wandered central Asia, and bear a close resemblance to the cotton "kilim"s still available today. It is not exactly known when and where the first knotted-pile carpets were…

Turks were first introduced to coffee over 450 years ago.  A while after an Ottoman governor to Yemen brought coffee to Istanbul and introduced the beans of coffee to the Ottoman Capital.  Within a century, first Venice, than…