İzmir travel guide

Top 10 sights in İzmir

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   1

   Smyrna

   The ancient Greek city on this coast, refounded by Alexander's successors around 300 BC on Mount Pagos after the old settlement was destroyed. Its grid plan, agora and theatre are under modern İzmir, and one of the Revelation's seven churches was here.

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2. 

   2© User:Sailko · CC BY-SA 3.0

   İzmir Clock Tower

   A clock tower of 1901 on Konak Square, built for the twenty-fifth year of Abdul Hamid II's reign in an ornate Ottoman-Moorish style twenty-five metres high. The clock itself was a gift from Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the tower is on the city's coat of arms.

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3. 

   3© Ed Kohler · CC BY 2.0

   Atatürk Mask

   A concrete bust of Atatürk in the Buca district, finished in 2009 at a cost of 4.2 million lira and about forty metres across the face. It was built into a hillside so that it reads only from a distance, and it is among the largest portraits of him anywhere.

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4. 

   4© Mr. E. Unlu · CC BY 3.0

   Kadifekale

   A hilltop castle on Mount Pagos at 186 metres, whose earliest walls date from the third century BC when Lysimachus refounded Smyrna here. Byzantine, Genoese and Ottoman work is layered on top; the whole gulf is laid out from the ramparts.

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   5

   St. John's Cathedral

   Seat of the Catholic archdiocese of Izmir, raised in the 19th century in the Alsancak quarter. It is dedicated to John the Evangelist, who in the Book of Revelation addressed Smyrna as one of the seven churches of Asia.

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6. 

   6© Francisco Anzola · CC BY 2.0

   Hisar Mosque

   The largest mosque in central İzmir, dated to 1592-98 and attributed to the Ottoman governor Aydınoğlu Yakup Bey, standing in the middle of the Kemeraltı bazaar. Its interior holds the finest Ottoman tile and painted decoration in the city.

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7. 

   7

   Konak Mosque

   A small mosque of 1755 on Konak Square beside the governor's mansion, endowed by Ayşe Hanım, daughter of a local notable. It is octagonal and covered in Kütahya tiles, which makes it one of the most photographed buildings in İzmir despite its size.

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8. 

   8© sailko · CC BY-SA 3.0

   İzmir Archaeological Museum

   The archaeological museum, holding finds from around the gulf — statues from the Roman agora, a bronze runner, Bronze Age pottery and grave goods. Most of it comes from Smyrna, Teos and Klazomenai, and the Ethnography Museum shares the hill.

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   9

   Konak Square

   The main square of İzmir at the southern end of Atatürk Avenue, on reclaimed shoreline, holding the clock tower and the Konak mosque. Ferries to Karşıyaka and Bostanlı leave from the pier beside it, which is the best way to cross the bay.

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10. 

    10© İdilozsoy · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Saint Polycarp Church

    The oldest church still standing in İzmir, rebuilt in 1625 with permission from Suleiman's successors and dedicated to Polycarp, the bishop burned in the stadium here in about 155. Its interior was painted with trompe-l'œil scenes of his martyrdom in 1898.

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1. 

   1© Agora_vue_générale.jpg: Didier Laroche derivative work: IgnisFatuus (talk) · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Agora of Smyrna

   The Roman agora of Smyrna, first laid out in the fourth century BC and rebuilt by Marcus Aurelius after the earthquake of 178. Its basilica's vaulted basement is intact, along with a working Roman water system, and excavation has continued since 1933.

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   2

   USS Ainsworth

   A Knox-class frigate commissioned into the US Navy in 1973 and transferred to Turkey in 1993 as TCG Ege. She is now preserved at the İnciraltı naval museum in İzmir and can be walked through.

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3. 

   3© Nedim Ardoğa · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Kültürpark

   A 42-hectare park in Konak, laid out in 1936 on ground burned out by the 1922 fire and deliberately left as green space. It holds an amphitheatre, a small zoo site and the İzmir International Fair each September.

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4. 

   4

   Yeşilova Mound

   The oldest known settlement in the İzmir area, a tell in Bornova occupied from about 6500 to 4000 BC and then buried under silt. It was found in 2003 and has been excavated since 2005; a visitor centre stands over the trenches.

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5. 

   5

   St. John the Evangelist's Anglican Church

   A neo-Gothic Anglican church in Alsancak seating about 150, under the diocese of Gibraltar in Europe. British merchants had kept a chaplain in Smyrna since the 1630s, and the Levantine community built this church for their worship.

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   6

   Karataş

   A quarter of Konak along the bay, and the historic Jewish district of İzmir, whose Asansör — a lift of 1907 in a brick tower — was built to spare residents 155 steps between the shore road and the hillside. The street at the top is named after the singer Dario Moreno.

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   7

   Bet Israel Synagogue

   The largest synagogue in İzmir, at 265 Mithatpaşa Street in Karataş, completed in 1907 with permission from Abdul Hamid II. Unlike the older Sephardi synagogues of the bazaar it follows a European plan, with a gallery and an organ loft.

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   8

   St. Stepanos Church

   An Armenian church in the Basmane district and the centre of İzmir's Armenian community until the fire of September 1922 destroyed the Armenian and Greek quarters. Nothing of it survives above ground.

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   9

   Atatürk Monument

   An equestrian bronze of Atatürk on Cumhuriyet Square, unveiled in 1932 and made by the Italian sculptor Pietro Canonica. He points towards the sea, the direction the Greek army withdrew in September 1922, and the square is where the city marks 9 September.

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10. 

    10© VikiPicture · CC BY-SA 4.0

    İnciraltı Sea Museum

    A naval museum at İnciraltı in Balçova, opened on 1 July 2007, whose exhibits are the retired submarine TCG Pirireis and the frigate TCG Ege moored alongside. Both are open to walk through, hatch to hatch.

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