“Excuse me, could you tell me the way to the Asansör?”
I had emerged from İzmir’s Üçyol Metro station which was, according to the map, the one I needed to get to a tall lift that a 19th-century philanthropist had built to ease the plight of people living in the...
It’s a bitingly cold evening in İzmir which comes as something of a shock to me who had always imagined its climate to be very mild. Not to be put off, I amble north along the Kordon to eat in Alsancak, and as I do so I vividly recall a...
If you’re a visitor, there are many good things to be said about the new İzmir İzban which has made getting about town so much simpler. After all, with buses you need to be able to recognise your stop which is not always easy especially during the rush hour when...
"Go to Bayraklı on the Metro," the archaeologist at the Altınpark Achaeological Park in Basmane had said to me. "I live there so I know it's easy. Just go straight ahead."
On previous visits to İzmir I've often spotted brown tourist signs pointing to Tepekule, brackets Smyrna, and wondered whether I...
Returning to İzmir after several years’ absence I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Would Anafartalar Caddesi, that olde-worlde thoroughfare that runs east from Basmane Station, still look as ramshackle as ever, or would the modernisers have had their way with it, cleaning it up, evicting the squatters and installing...
