ISTANBUL, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Young people in Istanbul, Türkiye's largest city, are celebrating Valentine's Day with romance as well as farewells to the unpleasant past.

A romantic dinner on a ferry along the Bosphorus Strait, flowing between the European and Asian sides of the city, is among the favorites of love birds, with companies offering boat rentals usually operating at full capacity on the night of Feb. 14.

The Bosphorus is also one of the most popular places for proposing on the special day. The romantic kneel would take place when the boat passes right under the bridges that span the Bosphorus, accompanied by laser shows.

Meanwhile, many neighborhood squares in Istanbul are adorned with colorful flowers prepared by street vendors trying to seize the most profitable day of the year.

Hamdiye Golen, 75, has been selling flowers from her small kiosk in Taksim Square in the busiest district of Beyoglu for 20 years. "This is the most profitable day of the year for vendors like me," Golen told Xinhua. "Our sales last at least until midnight."

She said the red roses are the most popular flower, noting that a single rose costs 75 liras.

But not everything in Istanbul on Valentine's Day revolves around romance.

Earlier in the week, a bazaar dubbed "ex-lover market" was set up in Istanbul's glitzy Nisantasi neighborhood on the European side for those who wanted to sell items left behind by their ex-lovers.

Filling the stalls are used shoes, bags, clothes, watches, and jewelry, some with attached notes: "Red doesn't suit you at all," written on one red sweater; "Untimely gone, our battery is dead," read a note attached to a wristwatch.

"The prices of the goods in the market are quite affordable, because everyone wants to get rid of their old memories as soon as possible," Ilayda Kurt, a visitor of the bazaar, told Xinhua while browsing through the stuff in a stall.

Kurt added that if she had any prior knowledge of the bazaar, she would definitely sell her ex-boyfriend's stuff left behind.

"People here have a chance to get rid of a lot of memorabilia that they don't want to see at home anymore," Ozay Akar, a co-founder of the bazaar, was quoted as saying by the Haberturk Daily. Enditem

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