Wander More Work Less

The rain was gone and the sun was back this morning. 👍 We grabbed a Dolmuş to Boyalık Beach with the idea of walking back from there. Boyalık is said to be one of the nicest beaches along this stretch of coast. There are certainly some fancy and expensive-looking hotels around, and the beach itself is what we might describe as typically Turkish based on what we’ve seen so far — beautiful clear water, but the sand is littered with cigarette butts and a fair bit of plastic rubbish. If only they could take better care of the environment, it would surely attract even more visitors. Then again, maybe they flock in here anyway. It’s super quiet at this time of year — we probably saw no more than a dozen people along the whole stretch of beach. We walked its full length, right to the point where the land juts out from the Çeşme peninsula. Ilica Beach sits on the other side of this headland. From there, we headed onto the streets and followed the access road to a large...

The forecast rain arrived at breakfast time, accompanied by a few claps of thunder. The rain was heavy for a very short time, but while we were chatting to Emma on WhatsApp it started to clear, and soon there were glimpses of blue sky and sunshine. After our chat, we thought it best to get in a walk while we could. We started with a browse around the supermarket and the local pharmacy, looking for mosquito repellent and fly spray. Too many sneaky bites the last couple of nights — it was time to defend ourselves. Once we’d checked the options, we continued our walk from town, heading along to the main part of Ilica Beach. This part of the beach is very sandy and quite long, perhaps 2 km in total. The water is crystal clear, but the beach itself needs some TLC — too many spots with rubbish and plastic discarded carelessly. It would be a beautiful beach if people looked after it better. We walked in the sand for about 400 metres and then went up to a nice concrete promenade th...

Today we took a local dolmuş to the main town area of Çeşme. At first, we waited in the wrong place, but a driver heading in the opposite direction kindly gave us a lift to the corner and pointed out where we could catch the right bus. Çeşme is a much bigger seaside town/city than both Alaçatı and Ilıca Beach. We walked down the main street and stopped at a pharmacy to get sunscreen and moisturizer. The man in the shop spoke a little English and, once he found out we were from New Zealand, told us he was a big Lord of the Rings fan. He asked if we had been to Hobbiton (we haven’t), but I did show him photos on my phone of the Arthur’s Pass rocks where some scenes were filmed. We continued towards the seafront avenue and then walked alongside the sea. There were a number of tourist day-cruise boats lined up, but it doesn’t look like they go out much now that the summer season is over. We walked as far as one of the local city beaches, which had beautiful clear water. ...

An earlier 8:30 am start for this morning’s walk. Today we headed inland to Alaçatı, the next closest small town, which is connected to Ilica Beach via residential neighbourhoods. Alaçatı has much more of a town centre. It was a long walk, weaving through quiet residential streets before reaching the main road into town. The streets are lined with what appear to be quite fancy houses, but the roads themselves are not very well maintained. From what we can tell, this was originally a place where wealthy people from Izmir would come to holiday and buy houses for weekend escapes at the beach. Alaçatı is more historic, with lots of narrow, pretty alleyways. Not quite as charming as the Greek Islands, but certainly prettier than the streets in Kuşadası or Selçuk. One standout feature here is the highly decorated doors—I’ll include a couple of photos. The town is clearly tourist-focused, with lots of small cafés and restaurants (and inflated prices to match). Sarah spotted coffee as high as ...

A sleep-in day for Sarah before we went out for a morning walk at 9:30 am. To get a feel for the local area, we went directly to the seafront avenue, then turned left, sticking to the shoreline as much as we could. The water here is beautiful and clear, very similar to the Greek Islands. We weren’t heading in the right direction to see the main Ilica Beach, but we did come across a few small sandy bays tucked between the concrete built-up areas. Most were occupied by restaurants and fishing spots, though there were very few people in the restaurants. We’re here after the busy summer season, and mornings are usually quiet anyway. A few people were out fishing. We passed a small marina and then walked out onto a breakwater where a hot water spring emerges into the sea. It’s a popular spot for swimming and soaking, as the water temperature can reach around 45 °C. We kept following the coast with no particular finish point in mind and eventually reached ...

We’re on the road again today, heading to a new place in Turkey. We weren’t really sure where to spend time after Selçuk. The typical “go-to” places are too far south or east for the days we have available. We decided we weren’t keen on doing big 10-hour train journeys just to tick them off. They can wait for a return visit some other time. As it is, we needed to take a dolmuş and then at least one or two other buses to get to our chosen destination — Ilıca Beach. It’s out on the Çeşme Peninsula, which requires a transit and bus change in the big city of İzmir. We did consider spending a few days in İzmir, as it has plenty of things to see. But we don’t really enjoy big cities unless they’re iconic ones like Budapest or London. So, we hunted for a smaller place and came up with Ilıca Beach near the town of Alaçatı. Fingers crossed it turns out okay. The plan was to take a dolmuş minibus to İzmir at 11:30 a.m. and then find a bus to Çeşme. The theory was that they run quite often, but i...

A later start to our exploring today because I was keen to watch the Broncos v Panthers rugby league semi-final. It didn’t start until 9am, but unfortunately I was awake just after 5am. I didn’t even need the Call to Prayer as an alarm clock. I ended up only watching the first half and then checked updates on my phone for the second-half score. At half-time we set off to visit the site of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. We didn’t even know there was one on our doorstep until yesterday — the ruins of the Temple of Artemis.  Temple of Artemis We could walk to the temple site as it was only about a kilometre away. Sadly there isn’t really much of the temple left — just the site where it once stood, one reconstructed column, and a few old marble blocks. Still, it was pretty cool to know we had visited where one of these Ancient Wonders once stood. We can now at least say we’ve ticked one of them off! We then continued up to the Basilica of St. John, which is ...