Since the founding of the republic in 1923 as the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, Turkey has been secular and Kemalist in orientation. The country's founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, initiated a modernization of Turkey through social and legal reforms modelled on various European nation states.
The current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been at the helm of the country since 2003. Since around 2012, he has led the country in an increasingly authoritarian manner. Freedom of expression and freedom of the press in particular are considered to be severely restricted. The currency and debt crisis triggered by its economic policies as well as high inflation have continued since 2018, which makes Turkey quite attractive from a tourist perspective.
The culture of today's Turkey is a fusion of the ancient Turkish nomadic culture of Central Asia and Siberia, the Greco-Roman era, the culture in the Ottoman Empire with its Byzantine, Persian, Arabic, Caucasian, Armenian and Kurdish influences, as well as the strong European direction since the founding of the Republic Ataturk. The cultural centre of the country is the metropolis of Istanbul.
With the political changes, the content of Turkish literature also changed. Early representatives include Fakir Baykurt, Sabahattin Ali, Sait Faik Abasıyanık and Yaşar Kemal, who put ordinary people at the centre of their work. With the turn to describing living conditions, social and political criticism of the state is inevitable. The state reacts with censorship and political violence. Authors like Nâzım Hikmet, Yaşar Kemal and Aziz Nesin spend many years in Turkish prisons because of the persecution of their publications. Kemal therefore referred to the prison as a “school of Turkish literature”.
Turkish cuisine has also influenced Greek and the rest of the Balkan cuisine - including etymology. For example, tzaziki comes from the Turkish cacık, and Ćevapčići comes from kabapcik. Yogurt also comes from Turkish Yoğurt. Doner kebab is made from beef, veal or poultry. In Turkey, but also in other countries, the kebab is also served on a plate.
About 16 kilometers west of the city of Selçuk one encounters another oracle place of the god Apollon, the place Klaros (Latin Clarus), which in antiquity belonged to the city of Kolophon, about 13 kilometers away. The ancient, but little-known, city of Notion was also in the immediate vicinity.
A very big town with the welcoming atmosphere of a village. We stayed out of town in a suburb called Buca in the apartment of our Turkish friend's mother. Everybody was very friendly and we experienced the genuine Turkish way of life, with mealtimes especially being a real family occasion.
The Clock Tower (Saat Kulesi), today İzmir’s landmark number one, was built by a Levantine French Architect Raymond Charles Pere in 1901 to commemorate 25th anniversary of Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II's accession to the throne.
Izmir, the third largest city in Turkey, is described as the pearl of the Aegean. It is a major port and commercial centre set dramatically around a huge bay and backed by mountains to the south.
As a port town, İzmir has always been strategically important for trade between Anatolia and other Aegean cities. Not surprisingly, the region of Kemeralti on Izmir's shore is a bustling business centre.
Turkey is one of the richest countries in wetlands among the countries in Europe and the Middle East. These wetlands have great importance especially for wildlife as well as local economy.
Adnan Menderes Airport (Turkish Adnan Menderes Havalimanı) is the airport at İzmir. It is located about 18 kilometres to the South of the third largest Turkish city, Izmir.
Early Sunday morning we started our trip back home to Antalya because we had got an invitation from the Director of Camlaralti Private College to come to Özdere, a small less important village on the way from Kusadasi to Seferihisar, for having breakfast together.
The most recent reports from Turkey about the Roman spa complex of Allianoi, sent by the local Allianoi Initiative led by the archaeologist professor Ahmet Yaras, says that now only the tops of excavated walls and columns poke through sand that workers employed by the Turkish State Waterworks are laying.
We met Didem Irmak, Hasip Özhan and Gizem Ayhan during our preparations for the XC Paragliding Competition in Mut. They needed to travel a long distance from Izmir to arrive in Mut just for the weekend.
Last spring, before we began our travel, we stopped over at the Guzelbahce camping site in Izmir and met Duygu. When we dropped by the same camping site again, we looked around for her and she was there! How nice : ) Now, Duygu is our neighbor in the camping site.
Whoever has been driving through Izmir in certain years has certainly noticed the worsening traffic conditions in the growing Aegean metropolis. Since the beginning of the 1980s individual traffic on İzmir's roads has increased steadily.
As in several other towns in Turkey and other places in the Southeast of Europe, Kızılca has been touched by the bad influence of migration especially of the young population.
Pamukkale (Hierapolis) is both, a magical and spectacular natural site, unique in the world and with its ancient ruins it is perhaps the most attractive spot for tourists.
The founding of Laodicea probably dates back to King Antiochus II, who had built the new town between 261 and 253 BC on the old site of Diospolis and named it after his wife Laodicea.
Many of the ancient sites we visited in Turkey are closely related to the history of Christian development and are explicitly mentioned in the Bible in this respect, as it is the case with Laodicea.
Ayvalık, a district of Balıkesir, is a tourism center with beautiful coasts surrounded green olive grove, pure sea water and beaches, and contains historical and archeological values.
Balıkesir, with about 315.000 inhabitants, is situated between the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean Sea, i. e. between the towns of Istanbul and Izmir in the province of Balıkesir. The town covers an area of 14,500 m² and, with its 1.5 million inhabitants, it is one of the 20 largest of the 81 provinces of Turkey.
Another quite popular destination is the Devil's Table, Seytan Sofrasi, which is halfway between Ayvalık and Sarimsakli.
A few kilometers south of Ayvalik, you will meet with the beach called "garlic beach" (Sarimsakli) next to the town of same name: Sarimsakli.