Anyone who visits Harrogate is always told they must go to Betty’s Cafe & Tea Rooms. When we visited Harrogate, we dutifully took ourselves off to said tea rooms. Can’t tell you if it was a pleasant surprise or a disappointment because it was an age ago, but I do remember wondering why these places …
Yes, readers; if you are not a football fan, never fear. There is no need to glaze over and stop reading. This is not so much a match report as another tale of the under-prepared travels of Barry and Julia; it’s just that the setting happens to be a football stadium – Alsancak Stadyumu – …
In the Izmir seaside neighbourhood of Alsancak, there’s a famous, pedestrianised shopping street called Kıbrıs Şehitleri Caddesi. Filled with high street stores, restaurants and patisseries it’s Izmir’s answer to Istanbul’s Istiklal Caddesi, though it’s much less crowded and the high-rise buildings are much less historic. So if shopping isn’t your thing (we’re most definitely not …
2012 has been a bit different to previous years for us in that we’ve spent our first twelve months with Turkish residency. This has meant we haven’t done any of our regular day trips to Meis so we had a bit of spare travel cash to play with to go somewhere a bit different. Let’s …
Memories from our time in Izmir: there are a lot of them. Food more than played it’s part by way of the söğüş, Çeşme kumrusu and the stuffed mussels. In between meals, we also managed a bit of sightseeing. Of course, we couldn’t go to Izmir without taking many photographs of the famous Izmir Saat …
We know that Turkey is famous for its street food and Izmir is a great city to be in if you’re looking to sample lots of street food treats. When we first visited, we were in the city for six short days and were on a mission to eat, eat, eat. Purely because so many …
Istanbul’s Beyoğlu area has the famous Istiklal Caddesi – a pedestrianised stretch of shops and eateries and swarms of people weaving their way to their intended destination with varying degrees of success. It’s a feature of the city, just as Alsancak’s Kıbrıs Şehitler Caddesi is for Izmir – except, we’re working on a much smaller …
Today is Cumhuriyet Bayramı (Republic Day) in Turkey, so this post seems quite apt for the occasion. Republic Day commemorates the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk became the first leader. For today’s post we’re heading back to Izmir and to Alsancak train station. And how does this relate to …
Regular readers of this blog will know we have a bit of a passion (or should that say obsession?) for food markets. Sundays are taken up with a trip to Çalış market, Tuesdays we’re off along the harbour in the opposite direction to Fethiye market and Fridays – our favourite – see us back on …
We had a little bit of a clue about where we were going. After getting off the bus from Fethiye to Izmir, we knew we had to find a local bus that was going to take us to Alsancak; Alsancak train station to be precise. “Get off the bus there, phone or text me and …