The Muang Thai Cup 2025/26 semifinal pitted Port FC against Chonburi FC in a high-stakes knockout clash at Ayutthaya Stadium on April 8, 2026. Both Thai League 1 sides entered with attacking reputations and a history of high-scoring affairs against each other. Port came into the match in strong form, while Chonburi looked to pull off an upset and advance to their first major final in some time. With a place in the final and potential continental qualification at stake, the game was expected to deliver excitement and plenty of goalmouth action.
The contest proved to be an open, high-intensity affair from the start. Port drew first blood in the 11th minute through Chaiwat Buran to take a 1-0 lead. Chonburi responded with a penalty kick converted by Jonathan Bolingi in the 29th minute to tie the score at 1-1. Queven Inácio then put Chonburi ahead before halftime with a goal in the 36th minute, making it 2-1 at the break. In the second half, Port mounted a determined comeback, equalizing through...
Arasta Bazaar, known locally as Arasta Çarşısı, sits tucked away just behind the Blue Mosque in Istanbul’s historic Sultanahmet district on the European side of the city. It forms a single, relatively narrow pedestrian street lined with roughly seventy to eighty shops, creating an intimate and far quieter alternative to the vast labyrinth of the Grand Bazaar.
The market is free to enter and typically open daily from around 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., though individual shop hours can vary.
Visitors reach it easily by taking the T1 tram to Sultanahmet station and walking a few minutes past the Blue Mosque, or simply by strolling from nearby landmarks such as Hagia Sophia or Topkapı Palace.
The shops specialize in traditional Turkish handicrafts of generally higher quality than the more tourist-oriented stalls found elsewhere: handmade carpets and kilims, Iznik-style ceramics, textiles including pestemal bath towels, jewelry, glassware, lamps, soaps, spices, and other artisanal souvenirs.
The atmosphere ...
The ancient Greek colony of Byzantium stood at the crossroads of Europe and Asia until 330 AD, when Emperor Constantine the Great refounded it as Constantinople, the new capital of the Roman Empire and a deliberately Christian “Nova Roma.”
For more than a thousand years the city served as the heart of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire, its emperors raising churches, forums, cisterns and palaces while defending Roman law and culture. That long continuity ended on 29 May 1453, when Ottoman forces under Mehmed II captured the city and brought the Byzantine Empire to a close.
Near the sea walls stands Little Hagia Sophia, originally the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus. Built under Justinian and Theodora in the early sixth century, its octagonal core and ribbed dome already experiment with the spatial ideas later perfected in the great Hagia Sophia.
A short distance inland the Hippodrome once staged the chariot races and public spectacles that defined civic life. Three monuments still...
The Egypt spice market in Istanbul is known as the Spice Bazaar or, in Turkish, Mısır Çarşısı, which translates as the Egyptian Bazaar. It stands in the Eminönü quarter of the Fatih district, immediately adjacent to the New Mosque (Yeni Cami) and close to the Galata Bridge and the shores of the Golden Horn.
After the Grand Bazaar it ranks as the city’s second-largest covered market and has long been celebrated as one of the world’s most important historic centers of the spice trade.
Its origins form part of the larger New Mosque complex, or külliye, a typical Ottoman ensemble in which commercial buildings generated revenue to support a mosque and its charitable institutions.
Construction of the mosque itself began in 1597 under the patronage of Safiye Sultan, the mother of Sultan Mehmed III, but the project stalled after her son’s death in 1603 amid palace politics. The Great Fire of 1660, which devastated large sections of Istanbul, created both the necessity and the opportunity for ...
