Hello, from Izmir!

 

Up this morning about 7, and actually didn’t get down to breakfast until almost 9!  As it’s a very quiet and lazy Sunday in Izmir, we figured there was no reason to rush!  We’re in our lovely and warm room at the DoubleTree, and it’s amazingly quiet outside!  For the third largest city in Turkiye – which I definitely believed yesterday, driving in through traffic and the rain, it’s just still this morning, which is amazing!  The weather has definitely changed though!  The storm blew in, and with it, brought much colder temperatures!  It’s only supposed to get to a high of 49 degrees today, and after the balmy and tee-shirt wearing days we’ve had almost since we got here, it was definitely time to bring out the nice and clean turtlenecks again!  For me at least – R, of course, continues in tee-shirts, disclaiming the one long-sleeve shirt I brought for him!  Oh well!  

 

Down to the breakfast restaurant on the mezzanine floor, and it was very nice.  I did order a scrambled egg – which definitely came out scrambled, but not my definition … more like an omelette, which I really wasn’t looking for.  Oh well!  Tomorrow I’ll know better and skip the egg entirely!

 


R's breakfast!

After breakfast, we took a taxi to the Archaeological Museum, probably 6-7 minutes up the hill.  Should have realized, though, when the cab driver had no idea where it was, that it should have been a little clue!  It’s really a pretty poor museum, as far as Turkish museums go!  Seems that they are either really first-rate, world class, or very old fashioned, with wooden and glass cases and not a lot of interesting things to look at!  Oh well!  Live and learn!



View of the Aegean from the Museum steps

Me on the museum steps!


Gorgeous head!


Interesting cross-legged figure; very rare in Roman sculpture 

Beautiful bronze statue

My favorite piece - a bronze lion around 2 c. bc


 

We did have the place pretty much to ourselves (surprise!) and at least the lighting was automatic – in the olden days, in some of these museums, the guards would actually have to go ahead of us to turn on the lights!  Now, at least, they turn on automatically as you walk through, which is helpful!

 

Toured the exhibits in probably 45 minutes, and headed back down the hill to catch another cab back to the hotel.  Easy to find one (as I say, it’s very quiet today!) and so here we are!  Not sure what we’ll do this afternoon, but I’m sure we’ll find something, but R wanted to write about Izmir, so took this opportunity to do so, and it follows.  (With a bit added by me about the British Navy…)

 

Izmir (the Turkish version of the Greek name Smyrna) is at the head of the Bay of Izmir, an arm of the Aegean Sea, with a recorded history extending back more than 3,000 years and, prehistory, back 8,000 years.  In the second millennium BC, it was under Hittite rule.  By about 1000 BC, the area was increasingly under Ionian culture; the Aegean was, in effect, a Greek lake.  It is said the Homer was born in Smyrna in the 7th or 8thcentury BC.  The city was a major part of the Mediterranean trade.

 

In subsequent years, Smyrna fell under the influence of the Lydians, Persians, Macedonians (Alexander the Great), Romans and, in 1076 AD, the Seljuks.  The Middle Ages saw the Crusades and the Ottomans (1389).

 

The Ottoman Empire, on the losing side of World War I, was occupied by the victorious allies who offered the western part of Anatolia to Greece.  The Greek army invaded in 1919 but were eventually defeated by the Turks in 1922.  There followed the mass evacuation of ethnic Greeks in what is now called “ethnic cleansing”, a terrible horrific wholesale slaughter of Greeks while the British Navy stood by in ships in the harbor.  What today would be called genocide, and for which people should still be held accountable.   

 

Since then, Greece and Turkey (although both members of NATO) have not been on very friendly terms; witness the on-going situation in Cyprus.

 

So … with that out of the way, I will say, more later!  Definitely looking forward to getting on the road tomorrow to Çanakkale!  Troia (Troy) is located about half-an-hour south of Çanakkale, and we plan on visiting both the site and its museum on Tuesday!  From what I’ve read both on-line and in magazines, the new museum at Troy is really something special, so I’m definitely looking forward to it!

 

Much love,

m

xxx

 

We ended up taking the rest of the day off, and enjoying a really restful afternoon!  Around 5:30 we went upstairs for dinner, and once again had the same two starters we had yesterday – the shrimp cooked in butter with the arugula and parmesan salad.  Only problem was, that about 3 minutes after we got the starters, our main courses came, so we were definitely a bit rushed!  R had the same beef dish that I had last night, and enjoyed it very much.  I had a chicken dish that was okay, but not great.  And saying that, we headed back to the room and are now in for the night!  And, as I say, on the road tomorrow!

 



My chicken with spicy sauce


Much love,

m

xxx

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