A Few Hours in Izmir

The third stop on our cruise was Izmir, Turkey. (If you've missed out on stops one and two, check out my posts, Biking in Croatia and Enough of Athens.) For this stop, we agreed to forgo the planned excursions, since they either didn't peak our interest or involved a lot of time riding on a bus. Instead, we took the opportunity to explore the city of Izmir on our own.

Famous Clock Tower in Izmir

We didn't do any planning for our day of exploration before leaving home, so our first stop upon exiting the ship was the port's tourist information desk. We picked up a map with major sites pinpointed (in Spanish, since the English maps were all taken), and headed towards the center of town.

Plaza in Izmir

Outside the terminal, the parking lot was full of TAKSis (taxis). As we passed, the drivers each presented us with a binder full of photographs and tried to get us to agree on a taxi tour of the city. It took a while to navigate through the entrepreneurial drivers, but eventually we reached an area where we could walk along without too much interruption.

Soon after, we saw the Ataturk Museum. I knew that the road on which the museum sat carried the same name and I knew that the map highlighted the museum, but other than that, I didn't know anything about Ataturk before entering. The small, two story museum with no entry fee, offered a good introduction to Turkish history and the role that Ataturk played in founding the Republic. The majority of the exhibit was on the second floor, so after we entered the employee pointed us to the stairs and followed us (presumably to make sure we didn't try to touch or take any of the items in the exhibit). The museum, located in a previous residence of Ataturk, consisted of several rooms displaying the former president's furnishings and possessions.  One room, which contained timelines of Ataturk's life and Turkish history, alongside quotations by and about Ataturk, (all in Turkish and English) helped put the rest of the rooms into context. While the content of the museum was interesting, the lack of air conditioning was not too pleasant, and soon we were ready to move to the next stop.

City View - Izmir

After the museum, we talked about what we wanted to see, and I suggested a visit to the Archaeology and Ethnographic museum. When we got to the museum (after a few accidental detours), we figured out that there were actually two separate museums for ethnography and archaeology. We opted for the Archaeological Museum, mostly just out of the desire to make a quick choice in the unbearable heat. (After living in the Netherlands, our ability to handle temperatures over about 85F has been severely diminished.) Unfortunately, inside, it wasn't much cooler, since, once again, the air conditioner wasn't running. We wandered through the rooms of stone statues, bronze works, and ceramics from various periods in history. As we approached each exhibit, we heard a loud click as the lights for that section snapped on; the sensors were a little off, however, so often the lights snapped on and off and on and off before we could finish reading the descriptions of the items behind the glass. One thing I found particularly interesting was that items from several different time periods had all been discovered during a dam rescue project, in which archaeologists were allowed to excavate a particular area before it was flooded to create a source of tap water for the city. Even now, under the flooded area created by the dam, graves and other reminders of ancient civilizations, sit, lost forever.

The Ethnographic and Archaeological Museums sat atop this hill.

Once we made it through our second non-air-conditioned museum, we decided we were finished visiting museums for the day. I suggested we walk back towards the ship along the palm-lined promenade, where a breeze made the heat slightly more bearable. Along the coast, we saw men fishing using only coils of fishing line (no rods). Others capitalized on this style of fishing, selling the coils of line, along with lures or bait. In addition, some men rode by on their electric scooters selling sunflower seeds and some carted around printers and a camera, offering to take a photo and print it right there for 1 Lira.

Along the Promenade

Our last stop before returning to the ship was a restaurant called Sara's, where we ate lunch. When we sat down, I was disappointed because the menu didn't seem very authentic with a club sandwich, fajitas, spaghetti, etc. We'd already passed most of the other eating establishments, however, and the majority seemed to be done serving lunch for the day, so we decided to just give it a try. I ordered a cheese plate and grilled chicken. Mr. Traveler ordered the club sandwich. When the food came out, Mr. Traveler's sandwich was more like a salami tosti (i.e. grilled cheese), but it was accompanied by heirloom tomatoes. My chicken was actually grilled on a fire, and the presentation was amazing -- mashed potatoes served in a round squash, a stack of grilled veggies including eggplant, carrot, and another type of squash, and grilled tomatoes.

Lunch

Before arriving in Izmir, I had very few expectations. I wasn't familiar with the area, and as I mentioned before, we didn't arrive with a plan. During the day, I made a few general observations. First of all, there were stray dogs everywhere. Most of them were tagged, and I suspect that the city has a program of fixing and releasing the strays (although I'm definitely not certain). It was just very sad to see them laying everywhere, in the heat, seemingly at death's door. Second, outside of the dogs laying around, the areas of the city in which we walked were very clean. It seems like the city has taken pride in itself and the potential interest of tourists. Finally, everywhere we walked, it seemed like someone had come up with a new inventive way to make money (whether by selling taxi tours or photos by the seaside). Over all, I got the impression that people were willing to work hard and be creative to support themselves and their families. Of course all of these observations were made during only a few hours in a small area of the city, so you can probably take them with a grain of salt.

Next up, our final stop on the cruise - Split and Krka National Park in Croatia.