İzmir, Port city in Turkey
İzmir is a port city on the western Turkish coast that stretches around a large bay surrounded by hills and mountain ranges. The urban landscape includes a compact old quarter with narrow lanes in Kemeraltı, a modern business district with wide boulevards, and residential neighborhoods that extend toward beaches along both northern and southern shorelines.
The settlement began around 3000 BC as Smyrna and grew into a trading center under Greek, Roman and Ottoman control. After a large fire in 1922, the city was rebuilt under its current name and transformed into a modern urban center.
Locals gather along the waterfront promenade in the late afternoon for their daily walk, stopping at vendors selling roasted corn and sunflower seeds. Tea houses and seafood restaurants line the streets where residents meet in a relaxed atmosphere, often sharing meals over conversation and watching the activity of the harbor.
An international airport connects the city to other destinations, while a metro network, buses and ferries serve the urban area. Walking works best in the old bazaar district, where lanes are narrow and often crowded.
The city holds one of the oldest continuously operating bazaars in the world, where merchants have worked in the same covered lanes for centuries. In some neighborhoods, bakers still sell a local ring bread called simit directly from carts on the street, a tradition visible throughout the day.
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