Lantern and Rug Bazaar Lane

A narrow bazaar lane runs between tall ochre walls, carved wooden balconies leaning overhead with potted palms spilling from their rails. Patterned rugs and kilims in red, teal and gold hang from every upper beam, drape across benches and cover a low divan at the front left. Glass and pierced-brass lanterns burn in clusters above the stalls. Painted jars and pitchers crowd a table beside open bowls heaped with red, ochre, purple and green spice cones, wicker baskets of folded cloth stacked on the cobbles below. Shoppers in robes and headscarves move down the lane toward a pointed archway that opens on sunlit towers and a palm. At the right a man on a wooden ladder hangs another lantern above a cabinet of glowing lamps and bottles. The plain cobbled strip down the middle keeps one clear channel through all that colour.