Bodrum ve İzmir

Today we are continuing our journey in Turkey. After we visited Antalya, we are ready to move to Bodrum and to Izmir. We really want to visit Bodrum because we have already heard a lot of this beautiful city and it is also a popular holiday resort.

Bodrum is a Turkish port that faces the Greek island Kos. It’ s a very popular city among young people to spend the holidays but because of the tourism Bodrum has one big problem. There is a very low rainfall and therefore they suffer of a shortage of potable water. The problems become more and more critically as the population and the number of tourists are increasing.

At our first day in Bodrum, we visited Pamukkale which is a natural site. Pamukkale, Turkish for “cotton castle”, is a terrace made of travertine that is formed by water from a lot of hot springs. We had never seen something beautiful like this terraces. It looked like snow or salt! We met an old woman who comes everyday to Pamukkale. She told us that the water could cure many diseases and has also a beautifying power. We didn’t understand how you could become more beautiful because of this water but she explained us by telling the legend of Pamukkale:

“Once upon a time there was a young and unmarried girl. She was so ugly that nobody wanted to marry her. She threw herself off the travertine to commit suicide but she wasn’t dead. She fell in the water of the pool and changed into a beautiful girl and she soon got married. “

We thanked the old woman for her explanation and moved back to our hotel in Bodrum because the next day we would like to sunbathe and in the evening we had to leave for Izmir.

We spend our last 2 days in Izmir, a city located on the Aegean Sea with a very important port. Furthermore it is the second largest city of Turkey. Izmir is not the original name of the city because in 1992, the Turkish government changed the name original name Smyrna into Izmir.

At night we went to the Izmir Clock Tower because it is beautiful illuminated. The tower has a height of 25 meter and there are 4 fountains, one at each corner of the tower.

Today is the last day in Izmir and we have visited the building of the Izmir International Fair, located in the heart of the city, because we wanted to see something of the economy in Izmir. A lot trade fairs, congresses and exhibitions are held in this building. Not only national ones but also international ones.

Now we are going to sleep because it is already very late and tomorrow we have to wake up early to go to our next country Bulgaria.

Hope to see you soon!

Delphine Van Vooren

Sources: http://www.pamukkale.net/listingview.php?listingID=7&name=Legend
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodrum
http://www.bodrumlife.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%B0zmir