Ceşme and Alaçatı

Dec 19 – 21, 2023

I wanted somewhere to decompress from the roadtrip, without much pressure to do anything (though of course, me being me, I spent the day trying to visit as many different beaches and terrains as I could).

These are two summer resort towns on a peninsula directly west of Izmir about an hour away from the city, bordering the Aegean sea. I visited them in what was obviously the off season, but had a great time in mild weather with sunny skies and gorgeous water and coastline.

The weather was quite windy, which I imagine is a constant fixture of the area based on the wind turbines on the hills all over the peninsula.

There wasn't really a high point to this visit, just a really beautiful easy place. Many of the restaurants and shops were closed for the season without updating their hours on google maps, but it was all fine.

I ate a local specialty called Kumru - a very good sausage and cheese sandwich. I walked along beautiful beaches. I finally ate traditional style Dondurma (turkish ice cream), made with salep and mastic that makes it more taffy-like, elastic, and slower melting. I sadly only ate one mastic cookie (bakeries I went to kept being closed), which the region is also known for and which I love.