Turkey - Ceşme - July 2004

22 Cesme Municipal Marina	23 Cesme Old Harbour	24 Castle Museum – a real ancient loo!

Ceşme is a charming town, full of Turkish tourists, but not many foreigners.  The homes are all upscale holiday villas, with well-kept lawns, and BMWs or Mercedes parked out front.  This was a real change from some of the tourist areas further south.  We eventually discovered that this is an area frequented by upper middle class families, mainly from Izmir.  The beaches are much prettier and sandier here than in the south, and the water, though cooler as we headed north, was very clean, and a perfect temperature for swimming in the hot Turkish summers. 

The “town” marina where we stayed is fairly new.  It’s a municipal marina, so the facilities are very basic.  We heard that it was to be sold within the year, so perhaps that will change.  The other marina in the area, Ceşme Setur Marina, is around the other side of the Ceşme Peninsula, meaning it’s quite out of the principally travelled routes north and south.  More importantly, it’s very small, extraordinarily expensive, and filled with powerboats.  We hiked on foot to see it, and concluded it was definitely not worth taking the boat around.

There is a fine old castle in the town of Ceşme, which we hiked around.  It included a small but well-presented museum with some unusual artifacts.