Carpet Shopping in Cappadocia: A Photo Diary

I don’t often buy a lot when I travel, but I knew that when I went back to Turkey, I wanted to buy a rug or carpet. I’d seen photos online of an amazing carpet shop in Cappadocia, so insisted that we held out on our carpet shopping until we arrived in Gorëme, the main town in Cappadocia. On our first day there, we wandered the streets searching for the shop, and I was over the moon when we found it.

The amazing carpet shop is called Galerie Ikman and has been in the one family for five generations. A lovely man named Suleyman currently runs the place and his sons and grandsons work in the shop alongside him. They're super friendly, and will happily sit with you for hours, drinking tea and chatting.

Galerie Ikman is actually a series of four or five shopfronts that all join up together to make one gigantic shop. Every single room is stacked floor to ceiling with hundreds of rugs. They sell a huge variety of rugs both in terms of appearance and quality, so there’s definitely something for everyone’s taste and budget.

We ended up buying two çicim carpets that are between 100 – 200 years old that we are absolutely in love with. We had them sent back to Australia so that we didn’t have to carry them around for the rest of our trip.

They’ve well and truly monetised just how popular and photogenic their main room is and ask for a 20Tl (~$4AUD) tip for taking photos. Suleyman's grandson has even invested in a drone and offers a full on drone shoot for $50USD. If you buy anything from the shop, you’re welcome to take as many photos as you like, free of charge.