Aegean Turkey (Turkish: Ege Bölgesi) is the western part of Turkey bordering the Aegean Sea. It's bounded to the north by Marmara Region which includes Istanbul, to the south by the long coastline of Mediterranean Turkey, and east inland by the plateau of Central Anatolia which includes Ankara the capital. To the west and within sight are the East Aegean Islands of Greece.

Regions

Central Aegean Izmir and its vicinity with lots of history and beautiful seaside towns

Northern Aegean milder climate than the south with olive groves everywhere

Southern Aegean crystal clear turquoise sea, verdant citrus plantations

Cities

• 1 Assos is a pleasant village with the Temple of Athena overlooking the sea.
• 2 Ayvalık has distinctive Eastern Med architecture.
• 3 Bergama has the must-see ruins of ancient Pergamon.
• 4 Izmir is the chief city of the region, Turkey’s third largest.
• 5 Çeşme means a spring and has geothermal waters.
• 6 Kuşadası is a busy resort and cruiser port with an island citadel.
• 7 Denizli inland is the route to Pamukkale and other nearby ancient sites.
• 8 Bodrum is a big resort with a castle built by the Knights Templar.
• 9 Datça is on the peninsula demarking the Aegean and Mediterranean seas.

Other destinations

• 1 Aphrodisias is the ruin of an ancient city founded in honour of the goddess of love.
• 2 Dilek Peninsula National Park is the wildest stretch of this coast, with forests, hiking trails and desolate beaches.
• 3 Ephesus is the best preserved of Turkey's ancient cities, once the capital of Roman Asia Minor.
• 4 Pamukkale the "cotton castle" is a white world of travertines.
• 5 Priene, Miletus and Didyma are a trio of ancient Greek ruins.
• 6 Sardis is the ruined capital of Lydia, backed by craggy Mount Tmolus.

Understand

To the glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome . . .

Travertines of Pamukkale

Yet they were in Aegean Turkey all along. Edgar Allan Poe’s poem To Helen refers to Helen of Troy and the fleets of Nicaea, both a short distance north of this region, and modern visitors seeking the fabled ancient cities of Greece and Italy soon discover that the best-preserved are right here. Hellenistic and Roman culture spread by sea, since the alternative was to drag a pack-mule over arid hills. Aristotle and Homer lived and breathed here, Aegean olive oil was exported across the Med, and new concepts such as Christianity flourished – documented in 90 AD as the Seven Churches of Asia. Tourists began arriving 2000 years ago and today every few minutes another planeload flies in. This has led to a rash of mediocre development, but the best of the region still awaits you.

The climate is Mediterranean, with hot dry summers (daytime 30-35°C), warm transitional seasons that are often the best time to visit, and mild wet winters (daytime 10-15°C with 8-16 days of rain a month). Inland and mountain climate is more extreme, with sun-baked days over 35°C and biting cold winds, even snow, in winter.

Talk

Turkish is obviously the main language, but English and German are widely understood in tourist facilities.

Get in

And see also Istanbul to Izmir, a series of itineraries via historic sites such as Gallipoli and Troy.

Temple of Athena at Assos

By plane: the region’s airports are Izmir (ADB ^IATA), Bodrum (BJV ^IATA) and Dalaman (DLM ^IATA). Frequent flights from Istanbul (IST) take an hour, plus daily from Istanbul (SAW), less often from other Turkish cities. All of them in summer have flights from Europe, principally Britain, Germany and Russia: these are package-tours but offer flight-only tickets.

By road: The main highways are fast, divided and in good repair. Mountain roads may be narrow and twisty, and treacherous in winter weather.

Buses from Istanbul to Izmir depart hourly round the clock and take 8 hours, and buses converge on Izmir from Ankara, Konya and other major cities. So anywhere on these radial routes has a good service. Dolmuşes fill in the cross-country gaps, though they don’t always publish timetables, or even recognise the concept.

By train: the mountains are a major barrier to railways here. One daytime and one overnight train creak and groan from Ankara via Eskisehir (both on the high-speed line from Istanbul) to Izmir. You can also cross the Marmara Sea by ferry from Istanbul to Bandırma to connect with these trains at Balıkesir. An overnight train from Konya (also on the high-speed line) runs via Afyon and Manisa to Izmir. A regional train runs twice a day from Isparta to Izmir.

By boat: Several Greek islands are close to the Turkish mainland and have ferry links: Lesvos to Ayvalik, Chios to Çeşme, Samos to Kuşadası, and Kos to Datça and Bodrum. These connect into the extensive Greek ferry network, so you can island-hop all the way from Piraeus the port for Athens.

Get around

Buses connect the towns, but some major sites are at a distance from public transport. Consider hiring a car at your arrival airport.

Day-trips to those sites are vigorously touted in the resorts, and solve the transport problem at the cost of trudging behind a green parasol all afternoon. You could negotiate a taxi for a few hours: this especially works for Priene, Didymus and Miletus, a scattered trio with poor signposting. It also helps at Ephesus and Pergamon where the natural route is to enter the uphill gate and tour through to the downhill gate, and the taxi driver will move to pick you up.

See

Library of Ephesus

Ancient cities: almost any town here has a 3000-year history, recounted in its municipal museum. By far the best are Ephesus and Pergamon, with other impressive sites at Assos, Miletus and Didyma. What you see today reflects a spate of Roman construction around 200 AD over earlier foundations: the state buildings and palaces at the core of a trading metropolis. (You’ll have to imagine the welter of smaller surrounding buildings that disappeared, and the port that dried up and caused the site to be abandoned.) Away from the big-name sites are dotted individual temples, gateways and colonnades, either popping up incongruously amidst a busy modern city, or out in the fields inhabited only by goats.

Medieval architecture is scarce in this region: it fell victim to earthquakes, to the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922, and above all to property developers with a boundless supply of concrete. The village of Birgi southeast of Izmir is one charming survival. Mosques have fared better as they were repaired or rebuilt. An interesting example is the İsa Bey Mosque in Selçuk, built in the interregnum between Seljuk and Ottoman styles.

Neo-classical buildings are much more common, as the coastal towns were prettified by Greek and Armenian merchants, and their mansions were left intact. Ayvalık, Foça, Alaçatı, and Çeşme are good examples.

Castles and citadels occupy multiple defensive positions, and many were kept in good repair as barracks or prisons into modern times. The best are at Bodrum, Kuşadası, Çeşme and picturesque Çandarlı. They can feel touristy, but off-the-beaten-path is Babakale, guarding the westernmost tip of the Asian mainland.

St John's Church of Philadelphia

Seven Churches of Asia reflect Aegean Turkey’s role in early Christianity. They’re recorded in the Bible’s Revelation of St John (Chapters 1-3), written around 90 AD by John of Patmos. The seven were Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, and at that date were probably just congregations or communities. It’s not known when they acquired dedicated buildings – churches – for religious assembly, but an early step was to adapt pagan temples. (Thus the underground worship of Mithras morphed into the crypt or “undercroft” of present-day churches.) Christian temples were built when that became the Roman official religion from 380 AD, and those of Pergamon, Ephesus and Philadelphia still have visible ruins. The other sites are lost, with no sign of “the number of the Beast 666” or “mother of harlots and abominations” or John’s other rantings and ravings, but at least the “no temple therein” (chapter 22: 22) was one prophecy he got right.

Do

Village of Şirince

Beaches are mostly rocky or pebble, though with a few sandy stretches near Bodrum. That makes them better for watersports such as windsurfing than for sun-lounging and bathing. The larger resorts have scuba-diving centres: these waters are good for training and novice divers, there's nothing demanding.

Geothermal waters: the stand-out is Pamukkale, where the flow has created a cascade of white travertine pools, with the ruins of a Roman city above. At Ilıca hot springs emerge into the sea. Many towns have hamams – traditional Turkish baths – or hotel spas, but these use conventional heated water not geothermal sources.

Eat

The only available cuisines are Turkish and Turkish-lite, the sort of East Med staples like grilled fish that package tourists from Darlington or Düsseldorf won't jib at. There's almost no other cuisine (such as Chinese), even in Bodrum the biggest resort.

Drink

Çeşme Castle

Tap water is safe to drink.

Cafes and restaurants serve alcohol, but only the biggest resorts have free-standing bars.

This region grows plenty of grapes but most are sultana variety, to be dried into raisins. However some wine is produced, mostly around Denizli. It's full-flavoured red and great for chasing down a kebab, Turkey doesn't have defined wine regions.

Rakı is the Turkish national drink.

Sleep

The Aegean coast was frantically developed from the 1980s when it came within easy flying time of north Europe. This means a rash of hotels and apartments of similar quality, and not much by way of campsites and independent pansiyons. The north Aegean resorts are more geared to domestic tourism while the centre and south get the bulk of international visitors.

Go next

• Mediterranean Turkey starts from Fethiye and stretches east all the way through Antalya to Adana. Much of the coast is rocky until Antalya, then comes a long sandy stretch that makes it prime tourist territory.
• Southern Marmara to the north has a historic coastline, including ancient Troy.
• East Aegean Islands, reached by a short ferry ride, are part of Greece. The largest are Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Ikaria and Fourni.