A courtyard full of useful shops. Food is high on the list of things to buy in Kastamonu, so plan trips around local market days. In Kastamonu itself, a good place to start – and a good rendezvous point – is the central Münire Medrese, a former college, whose cells are now shops, with a pleasant café in the vine-covered courtyard. Everything from food to hardware is sold within a few hundred yards. Mustafa Afacan’s shop, Paflagonya Organik, is a magnet for knowledgeable foodies, as much for its owner – the affable Afacan is columnist on one of Kastamonu’s local newspapers and outspoken on all things organic – as for his garlic and other local produce: the mineral-and-nutrient-rich soil of nearby Taşköprü produces garlic that is 10 times as pungent as ordinary garlic. But there is more than just food here – the İzbelli Çiftliğik also have a small shop in the courtyard, where you can buy linens and cottons with ‘nail-lace’ trimmings. And the shop next to Afacan’s has delightful printed cottons.