Each city has its own personality, with qualities that either attract or repel the visitor, and if you’ve read our previous posts on Izmir, you’ll know we were very much attracted to the Aegean city. It’s a confident city without being cocky or in your face. It’s surrounded by mass tourism but remains unaffected by …
We’d been in Izmir for four days and still hadn’t made it to one of the sights on our list of Izmir Must-Sees – Kadifekale (the Velvet Castle). Racing around, bagging sights is never really top of our agenda when we go somewhere new – but Kadifekale sits on top of a hill (of the …
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 …
When we were staying in our apartment in Alsancak in Izmir, you can imagine how pleased (excited) we were when we woke up on the Sunday morning, opened the patio doors and we could hear the clanking of delivery trucks and traders shouting their prices. Regular readers of this blog will know we have a …
“Don’t come back from Izmir without trying Çeşme Kumrusu!” This was just one of the many pieces of advice given to us by Turkish friends before we set off for our trip to Izmir in September. But it was also the piece of advice; the common thread that linked all the other suggestions offered. Woe …
We decided to walk to Asansör – well, we’d walked everywhere else in Izmir so we figured we might as well continue the trend. It looked easy enough. Hit the kordon (promenade) in Alsancak and keep going until we could see Asansör. We strolled along the seafront, passed Izmir Saat Kulesi and, an hour after …
In Izmir, there is one historic attraction that most people know about. We almost felt duty-bound to go and see it to take photos of it. Izmir Saat Kulesi (Izmir Clock Tower) is the symbol of the city and arguably its most famous sight. We felt we couldn’t ignore it, and so, we went off …