EDITOR’S NOTE: This NCS Travel sequence could have adjoining advertisements by the nation it highlights. NCS retains full editorial management over material, reporting and frequency of the articles and movies, in compliance with our policy.
On sizzling summer time nights, a lengthy line types close to the waterfront of Eski Foça, a small city on Turkey’s Aegean coast.
Laughter and chatter fill the air as vacationers wait for his or her flip to purchase sakız dondurma, the native ice cream.
It’s a city formed by 1000’s of years of historical past, conquered by dozens of civilizations, but it nonetheless feels sheltered from the chaos of the trendy world. One purpose, says Oğuzhan Çakırefe, director of tradition and social affairs for the Foça municipality, is that “unlike other cities in Turkey, construction hasn’t been allowed,” preserving its previous fishing city vibe.
Whether in taverns, at sea or alongside the waterfront, “shared memories, shared sorrows and kinship,” type a bridge between the previous and the longer term, he says.
To perceive Eski Foça, it helps to look to its previous. Also often known as Phocaea in Greek, it was an vital Ionian settlement. The Ionians, a Greek individuals who dominated the west coast of modern-day Turkey from the ninth to the seventh centuries BCE, shaped a league of 12 cities alongside the Aegean coast. They developed a highly effective naval fleet and established colonies as distant as Corsica earlier than being conquered by the Persians, then Alexander the Great, the Genoese and eventually the Ottomans within the fifteenth century.
Çakırefe says the Ottomans referred to as the world Foçateyn, that means “two Foças,” to differentiate between Eski (Old) Foça and Yeni (New) Foça, about 20 kilometers aside.
Ancient Greek author Homer, in his epic poem about Odysseus, King of Ithaca, refers to a city alternately referred to as Phaeacia, Faiakia or Scheria because the final vacation spot in Odysseus’ epic 10-year journey.
Eski Foça, with its massive pure bay, is ringed by the Foça Adalar — six uninhabited islands — and the Siren Kayalıkları, or Siren Rocks, a volcanic formation that many consider matches Homer’s description.
Orhan Boğaç, a second-generation boat captain who takes guests on day journeys to the rocks, is considered one of them.
“The largest island, Orak Island, is where the sirens sang,” he says.
“The sirens were a type of mermaid with the head of a woman and the body of a bird. According to legend, they sang seductively to lure passing sailors towards them, where a storm, whipped up by their wings, caused them to crash their ships into the rocks, sink and drown.”
Odysseus is claimed to have escaped by ordering his crew to tie him to the mast of his ship.
Today, day-trippers depend on Boğaç to steer near the startlingly white Siren Rocks, their surfaces smoothed by wind and waves. When the wind whistles by means of the stone and the ocean beats towards the hull, some vacationers swear they’ll nonetheless hear the sirens’ name.
Whether Eski Foça was really Odysseus’ closing vacation spot stays debated.
In distinction, the existence of Mediterranean seals within the waters off Eski Foça just isn’t. The seals, often known as foka in Turkish, lend their identify to the city. They’re an endangered species solely discovered on Turkish, Greek and north-western African coasts, and there may be stated to be a small inhabitants of them dwelling on the Foça Islands. Humans aren’t allowed to set foot on the islands and boats don’t get too close to.
Because the shoreline is dotted with caves the place the seals can shelter, sightings are uncommon, says Boğaç. Some locals even hyperlink them to legends from Celtic and Nordic folklore about creatures that shed their seal skins to change into human.
Back on land, guests can stroll alongside the bay, loosen up on the general public seashore or cease at one of many close by seashore golf equipment earlier than exploring the city’s historical past. The Fatih Mosque, in-built 1455 on the orders of Sultan Mehmet, conqueror of Constantinople, stands close to the later-period Kayalar Mosque, an instance of Ottoman structure.
Until the early twentieth century, Eski Foça had a blended inhabitants and was, says Çakırefe, “a cosmopolitan port town, predominantly inhabited by Greeks, Turks, Levantines and a small number of Jewish families.” Residents lived facet by facet, supported by commerce in grapes and alum, which was exported throughout the Ottoman Empire.
That modified with the Greek-Turkish inhabitants trade of 1923, when Greeks born in Turkey and Turks born in Greece have been pressured to maneuver in accordance with ethnicity — one thing that Bogaç’s household skilled.
“I am the grandson of a family that came to Eski Foça from the village of Myrina on the Greek island of Lemnos in 1924 during the population exchange,” he says.
The subsequent wave of newcomers arrived within the Fifties, when Club Med opened Turkey’s first trip resort close by. French vacationers have been later joined by guests from Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands, although in latest a long time worldwide tourism shifted towards Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.
Today, Eski Foça largely attracts day-trippers from Izmir and Turkish guests trying to get pleasure from some peace and quiet. On Sundays they collect to purchase domestically produced jams, olive oils and different meals at Yeryüzü Pazarı, a weekly market.
As the day cools, guests wander streets lined with restored stone Greek homes, now dwelling to boutiques and low outlets. At sundown, tables fill at Kavala Bistro Wine Bar, set in a transformed Greek dwelling relationship from 1881, earlier than diners transfer on to seafood eating places alongside the waterfront. An after-dinner stroll to Beş Kapılar Kale, a Genoese fortress repaired by the Ottomans within the seventeenth century, ends the night.
Sometimes a day journey to Eski Foça turns into eternally.
Çakırefe, now a longtime resident, was born in Turgutlu, in Manisa province, and educated as a classical musician, specializing within the ney, the Turkish flute.
“I came for two days,” he says. “But I have been living here for about 25 years, and my wife is also one of those who came for two days and stayed.”
He believes they didn’t go away as a result of they stepped on a black stone, a part of a native legend about two lovers from feuding households.
“The boy is sent to work in the city against his will, and the girl waits for him for months while sitting on a black stone, and finally dies in tears waiting for her lover,” he says.
“The people of Eski Foça are deeply moved by her story, and break the black stone into pieces and scatter them throughout the city, wishing whoever steps on them will never leave again, and that such pain of separation will never again be experienced.”
No one is aware of the precise location of the items of stone, however the legend lives on.