Odyssey of Izmir, the birthplace of Homer, doh!!

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We have now crossed the Ionian Sea in to the Aegean Sea. The Aegean is named after king Aegeus whose adopted son Theseus went off to fight the Minotaur. The problem, not for Theseus or the Minotaur (OK, Theseus wanted him dead so I'd say that was a slight worry if you were a Minotaur) is that all these Greek and Turkish mythological names are playing havock with my spell checker!! Every other word seems to be coming up with a red underline!!!

Known to the Greeks as Smyrna, Izmir is Turkey's 3^rd largest city and is sprawled around the head of the finest natural harbour on the Aegean coast. It was founded in the 3^rd millennium BC and reached its peak in 10^th century BC. The poet Homer was born in Smyrna during this period. Who can forget his philosophical masterpiece; ' Ah! Beer, the answer to and the cause of all life's problems"!!!' They don't get much more profound than that!

The ship docked at 9am. We had no particular plan so we had a leisurely breakfast in L'Oasi buffet and disembarked about 10:15.

Now all those who have been to Turkey before will know that on entry to the country, you have to pay £10, €10 or $20 for a visa. They will only take the exact money. It has to be a note to the exact denomination. Things are a little different if you arrive in to the country by sea. Providing you are staying on board the ship, even if the ship is docked overnight, a visa is not required. On leaving the ship you are issued with a landing card. This is then collected on your return to the vessel.

We had planned on having a walking day. There is a wide promenade that stretches from the port area of Alsancak (where we had docked) to the centre of Izmir (Konak, approximately 3km). The temperature was already 74F (23C) so it was a case of see how far we get. We were told a taxi fare was approximately €10 to Konak. As I said, we'll see how far we get on foot!!!

Inside what passed for a cruise terminal was a small excursion desk. A 1-½ hour round tour cost only €10. This would do for us. We were advised that the tickets could be bought on board.

As luck would have it, one of the open top (single decker) buses was pulling up as we ventured outside. We let the passengers off then proceeded to board.

‘No! No! Off! Off! Garage, Garage!' I couldn't understand why he insisted on saying everything twice. I know there were 2 of us getting on but saying each word once would have sufficed!! Especially in this heat! They want to learn to conserve energy!!! We turned around and saw a queue forming (correction: had already formed!) at the ticket office.

The Aida Diva, a German based cruise ship had also docked and when we weren't looking, most of their passengers had formed an orderly queue (an orderly queue of Germans – is that an oxymoron??!!) at the ticket office. After about 5 minutes, the sign went up: ‘Next bus 12:30.' It was only 10:20 and we had to be back on the Magnifica at 2:30. Don't these people realise when cruise ships are in town it should be all hands to the pump. What one earth was the driver of ‘our' bus heading back to the garage for??

So, walk it was then…!!!

We successfully navigated the gauntlet of taxi drivers and perfume sellers. Wow! €5 for 200ml of Dolce & Gabana. Why on earth did I let that one go??!

Walking down the promenade known as the Kordon, we both felt, as we looked across the harbour at the houses rising partway up the hills that cut Izmir off from receiving 3G on her phone, that this had a flavour of Hong Kong harbour about it. There seemed to be a steady flow of ferries crossing the bay. This we had to explore more.

Looking at the map we saw a dotted line from Alsancak terminal to Konak. We asked the man at the counter about the boat to Konak. He waved us away and pointed to the man at the turnstile. He, in turn, waved us through and pointed to a large map on the wall. We felt we had entered the world of Marcel Marceau!! Not a word was said. Everything was done in mime. Maybe it's a special holiday to celebrate this extraordinarily talented French mimic!!! The shaking of the head and pointing across the bay and to the neon lit sign indicated that boats didn't sail to Konak from here. I proceeded to do the ‘stuck in an invisible box' routine whilst Roisin pulled me along with an imaginary rope. This was our way of saying ‘thanks for the info!!!'

We had now been walking along the Kordon for about 45 minutes. Fishermen were fishing off the side of the shore. Others were gainfully employed in collecting the green algae that was gathering. This seemed a thankless task but they looked happy in their work. The streets are remarkably clean thanks to an army of street sweeper-uppers. I tried to explain to the green algae gatherers that they too could rise to the rank of street sweeper if they play their cards right!!! We passed a news report team that were standing around chatting as if they were waiting for something to happen. Maybe there was an unusually lot of green algae for this time of year or even one of the Costa ships were due in, who knows!!

In order to take respite from the sun, we passed through a shopping arcade. These were slightly upmarket shops from the usual array of trinket stalls. Now, I'm normally not in the habit of taking photos of the toilet signs (especially when the security guard expressed no photos in this arcade). The ‘ladies' and ‘gents' signs make perfect sense but the sign, which I'm guessing is the disabled toilet, looks like a man in a racing car!!!

Another 20 minutes and we had reached Konak ferry terminal. We expected to see a land mark that is Konak clock tower. As I turned to look across toward the old town I spotted said clock tower. I expected something a little more dominating of the skyline as it is on the first page of every guidebook. OK we didn't expect a clock tower with the magnitude of Big Ben but then we weren't expecting anything on par with Ormskirk town centre either!!!

The Saat Kulesi (clock tower) dates back to 1901. I'm glad people have found a use for it as it was either being used as a hotel for tramps or a centre of expertise for Palm readers! Behind the clock tower stands the Konak Carnii (mosque). This is more of a mini mosque. It stands as a monument nowadays. It was built in 1756. From this, the centre of Izmir as we know it today was founded. (I made that bit up but it could be true!)

We found a speaking assistant in this ferry terminal who, in very good English explained that no boats sail back to Alsancak from here. We would have to sail across to Karşiyaka then change and take another boat to Alsancak via Pasaport.

‘How much is that?' I asked.
'10 Lira and 50 kuruş' came the reply (pronounced koorush).

Giving here a 20 lira note I said (and I don't know why as I didn't know what kuruş was at the time), ‘I have 10 lira but I don't have any kuruş!' These tickets amounted to £2.00 each. Was I supposed to haggle?? I thought best not. I just took the tickets, smiled and we both headed for the turnstile that would pass us through to the jetty to await the next ferry.

The ferry took approximately 20 minutes. We followed everyone through the exit than made a sharp right turn in to the entrance to buy the tickets back to Alsancak.

A very pleasant hour spent sailing back and forth across the bay. You would have thought we'd have had enough of boats on our days ashore but it's nice to mix with the locals and not to be asked if we want to buy postcards or perfume!!

There is only so much you can see when you have a limited time at any destination. We could have visited the old town (somewhere behind the clock tower, so I was told!!). There was also the Kultur Park complete with parachute tower and then the citadel Kadifekale. We're sure places of great interest but these will have to wait for another day!!

We were walking back along the quay when Roisin pointed out the smallest sign in the world with an arrow and the words ‘MSC'. Now considering the ship was about 20 yards away the last thing on my mind was wishing there was a sign to point me in the right direction!!!

During our lunch we bumped in to an American couple, Bob and Charlize. (I hope that's how you spell her name! Apologies if it is incorrect) We got talking, as you do, about all things to do with cruises and it turns out that they have cruised quite a bit with Princess. During the conversation, Charlize told us that they get a discount because Bob is a Vet. I turned to him and asked him how many times did he have to stick his hand up a cow's arse to get that privilege. It turns out he wasn't that kind of a vet!!!

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[Questura]

You guys have sharp eyes...More speedy cops - this time Mudur specialists!