{"id":5202,"date":"2019-11-08T16:53:58","date_gmt":"2019-11-08T16:53:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4youth.gr\/?p=5202"},"modified":"2020-08-26T19:01:46","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T19:01:46","slug":"izmir-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/4youth.gr\/index.php\/2019\/11\/08\/izmir-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Izmir 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Every morning when we wake\nup we see the sun rising over Turkey. The turkish coast is only \n30 km away from Chios\nisland. So since Turkey is that close, we took the chance of the long\nweekend and booked a ferry for Saturday morning on the 26th<\/sup>\nof October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After realizing at the bus\nstation that there wouldn`t be a bus at 7:00 am on a Saturday in\nGreece we called a taxi and luckily made it to the port in time. Only\n20 minutes later we already stepped on the Turkish ground. Since we\nleft the European Union we had to wait a bit in the line for the\npassport control in Cesme, the city which is the closest to Chios but\nafter this it was time to explore a new country. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the bus we made our\nway to Izmir which is the 3rd<\/sup> biggest city of Turkey and\nabout one and a half hours away from Cesme. A bit confuesd we\narrived in the middle of the city without any Turkish Lyra and\nwithout any possibility to use our phones since we left the EU. It\nmust have been our faces which made a women who surprisingly spoke\ngerman help us. The amount of people who spoke german was one of the\nthings that surprised all of us many times during this trip. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around noon we finally\nmade it to our hostel where we quickly stored our stuff and also\ncollected some tipps for the city. Our first destination was the\nKemeralti Market. The Kemeralti Market is not what we would call a\nmarket, it is a whole district with many small streets full of little\nstalls. On this bazaar you can basically buy everthing from clothes\nto home decore and food. After wandering through the streets for a\nwhile we were really hungry and decided to take a break in one of the\nrestaurants to try some Turkish food. The pricing of the food was\nanother thing that we discovered druing our stay. For a huge\ndelicious plate full of turksih dishes we only paid something around\n5 euro. Well strengthened we then walked to the historic clock tower\nwhich is located at the end of the bazaar district next to the sea.\nThe Ottoman architectured tower is one of the town`s landmarks and\nwas built in 1901 for the 25th<\/sup> anniversary of Abd\u00fclhamid\nll`s accession to the throne. From there we walked along the\nseaside to the Alsancak district. This district is full of little\ncafes and bars. So we did another break here for some late afternoon\ncoffee and cake. On our way back to the hostel we crossed the\nK\u00fclt\u00fcrpark. A lovely place in the middle\nof the city and the perfect spot to relax a bit more after this long\nday. Back at the hostel we met the other guests of the hostel which\nwere people from all around the world. We ended up having a really\nfun night all together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next day we started\nwith a really tasty and big turkish breakfast at the seaside. After\nthis we walked to the Kemeralti market again to do some shopping. We\ngot fresh spices and nuts for our house. When you are in the streets\nof the market you don`t realize how quick the time passes. For us\nthis meant that it was already time to go to the bus station and take\nthe bus back to Cesme. In Cesme we had a bit of time left so we got\nsome snacks and walked slowly to the port along the sea. With the\nsunset we entered the ferry and arrived 20 minutes later tired but\nhappy back on Chios island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although it was only a\nvery short trip we had lots of fun exploring Turkey and collected \nmany nice memories together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n