Ilıca, Çeşme

A short bus ride away from Çeşme via Boyalık Beach, Ilıca is the town’s biggest seaside resort with a fine stretch of sandy beach overlooking the Ilıca Körfezi (Gulf of Ilıca).

Fortunately the high-rise Sheraton hotel that used to dominate the landscape has now been landscaped and joined by other buildings so that it no longer seems quite so overbearing – although one might still wish that it had been designed with more of an eye to the environment.

Ilİca is a strange sort of place with some decidedly upmarket housing (the garden villas near the Sheraton will put some in mind of diplomatic enclaves around the world) rubbing shoulders with much more down-at-heel areas right in the middle of the beach.

Recently the 18th-century Tosun Paşa Yalı was converted into the elegant Nar’s Ilıca hotel. The adjoining Rasım Palace Hotel, in a building once visited by Atatürk, has also reopened as a grand beachfront hotel.