First Impressions of IZMIR Turkiye Completely Suprised by Turkey in 2024
[Music] hello everyone and welcome to the channel if you happen to be new around here my name is Trevor and this is Anna we are the delightful travellers make sure to hit subscribe and click on the little bell for our now Turkish Adventures yes if you watched our last video and made it to the end you would know that we are now in Turkey so excited to be here we've actually been here before but we're back in new area Izmir we figured we would start things off in one of the most iconic places here in izmir this is the izmir clock tower definitely something you will not miss if you come to the city it's in one of the main squares which is full of people and also a lot of pigeons this Tower is absolutely beautiful get this it was constructed in 1901 that's pretty wild cuz the city is like 5,000 years old it's 82 ft in height and it was given to the sultan at that time by German Emperor so as most of you regulars will know that I do a lot of the research for the video so I've looked up a lot about this I looked at photos and videos that other people did and honestly I didn't think it looked that impressive in pictures but in person it's really really quite spectacular it's quite large larger than you would expect when after looking at the videos and stuff it looks small on camera and everything you guys might be looking at that thinking that but it's really impressive I love the details of it it's worth coming to see preser also I noticed if there's a fountain over there as well we saw someone filling up their water bottle you can come and fill up your water bottle I'm not so sure about like drinking water in the city in general I think usually when you're coming to a new city people often suggest that you don't drink the drinking water just cuz your body might not be used to it so if you're from a away maybe don't do that but if you're from Turkey you might be used to it and it's not a problem so by the way this area is called kak Square now if there's a chance we're saying that wrong we're not very good at Turkish we might try to learn a bit of Turkish a little later in the video so stay tuned for that but you might be wondering like where is ismir I know a lot of you heard of Istanbul but ismir isn't talked about a lot at least where we're from in Canada it's basically on the west kind of in the middle it's not like Southwest it's not Northwest it's on the west side of turkey and it's the third biggest city in all of turkey that's pretty crazy there's also about 3 million people in this city so yeah it's big so while some of you might not have heard of ismir before you might have heard the term smea that's what this city used to be called I think it was actually founded by the Greeks and correct me if I'm wrong on that one so for about 5,000 years it was called smea the Greek name but in 1930 they switched it over officially to the Turkish name which is ismir well we've been to Turkey before and one thing we have missed is this this kind of street food huh yeah it's interesting isir actually has some of its own street food I've been looking out for stuff and I think this actual cart has a whole bunch of the things but one I've had my eye on in particular I think it's this guy yeah we're looking for some ey B bomba bomba B b b bomba well this is an ismir bomba it's what I've been looking out for I did read a big list of things that we should eat while we were here this was at the top of it for me and you'll find out in a second why it was a little bit of a confusing conversation the guy didn't speak any English which is totally to be expected not complaining about that don't speak any Turkish we don't speak any Turkish but I love the we we love having those fun conversations with people where you don't really know what each other is saying you use a little bit of translate we did figure it out I think we figured it out anyway what I think he was trying to ask us was there were different types which I didn't realize I thought it was just full of what what we'll find out in a second what it's full of but he gave us all these different options and it was a little confusing but we went for chocolate I think he kept mentioning almond as well he said classic but let's see what's inside that thing let's just go for it should I just pull it apart or should I bite into it bite into it okay M oh my goodness M look at all that chocolate in there so a bomba which is a type of pastry that is here from ismir I think it originates here I actually don't know if you can find it in the rest of um turkey but maybe you can but it's basically like pastry on the outside and always has chocolate on the inside this to me tastes like Nutella which I'm super excited about I love Nutella I could eat it all day but I I try to resist and I maybe have it once a year at top so I think he was saying there was pistachio there was almond and this is maybe almond or maybe hazelnut based on the fact that it does taste like Nutella but whatever it is it's so delicious there is so much traffic in this city you guys but one thing we really like in contrast to all the traffic is you can walk this city quite easily huh you can if you're staying in this neighborhood the kak area which is what where we just were in the Square it's very very pedestrian friendly and right now we're on like a basically like a waterfront prominade that goes really really far look at the uh look at the ground here it's all like kind of painted like almost like tiles but it just keeps going and going and going lots of people are out walking we love that about this city and I think it might surprise some people like I don't know when people think of turkey at least from our part of the world a lot of people are scared to come here and I don't know why because Turkish people are some of the nicest people on planet Earth one thing I love about this part of the city is there's just so much to look at so much to do there's actually the conak pier which is right behind us in there you're going to find lots of restaurants and shops and I'm pretty sure you can go sit outside and enjoy the views from there as well but as you're walking along you get to see the fairies passing the fairies are going different parts of the city cuz this is a very very large city and what you're not going to capture in the camera I'm sure you guys they not going to see it but it's really impressive in person is the different areas of the city which are sitting basically on the sides of these like greeny Brown Mountain sides but the buildings themselves are pretty white pretty bright so it's a really nice contrast it looks really beautiful just standing here on the pier and looking off in either direction yeah speaking of contrast I mean look at this kind of boat here and then you have like a modern building over there it's pretty cool the mixture here that you get tur lot we're actually right next door to our hotel here on the boardwalk walk and we thought we'd show you guys where we're staying we also wanted to escape the heat for a minute and get in some air conditioning it is 32° Celsius says my watch and it's September it's not even like July we hear it getting to like the 40s in July that's pretty crazy but you're going to want to see where we're at we are staying at the Marriot ismir which is in a great location as you can see we were literally just right outside of it a few minutes ago now we are here in our room and for those of you that watch us regularly you might be wondering like how on Earth are you a boarding to stay at a Marriott they're usually not the cheapest hotels so we actually have a Marriott credit card which has really helped out we actually booked we're staying here I think it's five or six nights we booked entirely on point so it's costing us nothing which is absolutely amazing we also have the um MX Platinum it's really expensive card but when you travel as much as we do we like basically the yearly fee we make up pretty easily and and you can transfer points between say like Aeroplan and Marriot as well so it's really good that way we'll link them Below in the description if anyone's interested I was going to say we'll put links below but now let's give them a quick tour yeah the absolute best part is this we have giant patio doors that look straight out to the ocean look at that you can see there's the boardwalk that we were just on as well desk on one side and then this huge chair on the other side which I have used for all of my stuff but if you didn't do that you could sit there and enjoy the view behind there we have a giant KingSize bed and super comfy we've now been here a couple of nights and I can say I'm sleeping very very well I'm sure the jet leg is helping as well big TV on one side TV we're probably never going to use we do have like a little coffee station over here mini bar down there and a very nice bathroom I love this bathroom this is definitely going to be the nicest place we stay I think anyway on this entire like Mediterranean trip that we're doing where else we go in in Europe I'm going to guess we're not going to get better than this it's too bad we're doing it at the very beginning and not at the end but so be it we're going to enjoy it while we're here but I love this bathroom water like rainfall shower head over there lots of space really really good bathroom so we're not working with the Marriott or anything like that we just wanted to show you guys where we're staying because you always ask and we're going to head back out shortly so we just wanted to take a little break but another thing you guys always ask us about is what do we do for phones cell phones Mobile plans when we're traveling so over the last couple of years since we discovered eims we've become huge fans especially over traditional SIM cards and we recently installed an eim from yesim we want to say a huge thank you to them for supporting our journey here in Turkey you guys ask us all the time about eims and now since we travel all the time we swear by them plus well our Canada plans when we are traveling are way too expensive so now we swear by these things at this point we try our best to avoid the hassle of getting an actual SIM card when we visit a new place eims are so much quicker and easier yesim is a mobile application for internet access that uses eim technology and is available in over 200 countries I cannot tell you the amount of times in the past that we have landed in a new country we don't have have an eim or a Sim installed we can't find a SIM card we can't find any Wi-Fi we feel stranded we don't know how to get where we're going and we just don't know what to do so eims have entirely made us avoid these situations we install our eim in advance then we just turn it on when we arrive in the new country we actually purchased and installed our yesim eim before we arrive to Turkey that way we can install it the minute we get here now that we've installed it and then activated it when we landed we're ready to go with data here in Turkey Yum's international plan allows us to pay only for the traffic we actually use and unlike regular cell phone plans there's no long-term commitment this plan is valid for any destination from yes's list of countries you fund your wallet with any amount activate the plan and use it until you have y coins in your account to use yesim on your next adventure just head to the link that's in the description below and use the discount code that's right here on the screen to get a 5e discount on your first purchase not a problem if you're not traveling right now either you can buy a package now and save it for later when you're traveling all right let's get back out in ismir [Music] well we've come over to the aora right in the middle of the city hold on one second while I duck here so I don't hit my head this place is crazy this is absolutely nuts this is right in the center of the city is you don't have to go far at all we literally walk here 20 minutes from our hotel and we're in these ancient rooms yeah look at it this way you guys like look at these arches this is absolutely nuts there's even like water coming out of these uh the ground here as well this is wow this is stunning yeah we've been in some ancient kind of ruins like this before but never have we seen water like this it's like actually on the ground this is uh yeah it's is cool that that's there because normally that's not the case huh yeah I wonder if it's always gushing quite so heavily from there it's kind of cool I wonder can you drink it that's the question I doubt it so we've mentioned throughout the course of this video how historic the city is it's actually considered one of the oldest cities in all of the Mediterranean which is crazy and of course this area here the Agora dates back pretty far I looked it up I have some facts for us about it uh this Agora was actually founded in the 4th Century BC uh right after the reign of Alexander the Great so the original Agora was actually destroyed by an earthquake in 178 ad so what we see right now what we're walking through was built by the Romans and the emperor Marcus aurelus it always amazes me how well this stuff holds up I mean look at the size of these kind of giant concrete blocks up here forming the Arches yeah I actually had read that they excavated this like in the 1900s so not that long ago like maybe started 100 maybe even less you know 50 to 100 years ago they started actually Excavating this which means was it fully buried I'm C I didn't get that far into the but imagine this just being like fully like a city was under here basically just under the Earth it's crazy so you guys might be wondering like what is an Agora what does it actually mean well basically back in the day way back in the day this was a hub it's like think of it as like the city Square bizarre a Marketplace all things happen here everything from political to religious you name it and this place is huge and I can only imagine what it was like back in the day it must have been such a busy place it's funny we were just walking around like kind of underground where the Arches are over us and I saw a little set of stairs that just had a sign pointing up and I didn't see anybody actually take the stairs so I didn't know if it went anywhere but it leads to up here so if you come here don't miss the stairs cuz wow it's really up here yeah you get a really good Vantage Point like at everything the big pillars as well yeah you can't even really see the pillars from down below I didn't realize there's all these like crazy Roman pillars right here this is so interesting right now we're out kind of in grasp but the reason we're out there is because of all this over here so you can see there's all this kind of remains what I assume was maybe a building at one point I don't know if the ground like was way lower it's so hard to tell isn't it I feel like I shouldn't be out here like you can just come and touch all this ancient stuff there's no sign saying we weren't supposed to be here and nothing blocking us off so wow this is just nuts it's so funny being a Canadian and I think a lot of North Americans can probably relate to this we just we're a new country like relatively new country so you don't have anything ancient obviously around and it's mindboggling first especially when we first get over here every time we come to say Greece or turkey or Italy and you start seeing these ancient ruins your mind is blown at first but then after a couple of months you kind of become desensitized like oh this is from 5,000 this is from 3,000 BC and it kind of stops having any like meaning meaning to it almost I'm curious as a European how you feel about ancient things is you're just like eh I see it all the time or do you are you really impressed by it I know I I know we're very impressed by it look at this like look at the uh kind of writing I don't know if you guys can see that if the camera will pick it up it's just it's just nuts it actually looks like Greek I don't know if it is I can't I cannot speak Greek and I cannot speak Turkish as well but it looks like some of the Greek Sy syb but yeah look at all the uh kind of rubble here wow this is so so fascinating you can see like the old pillars and everything I don't know if I haven't come across it yet but I'm curious if there's a photo anywhere of what this would have actually looked like when it was all together well I just mentioned that we can't speak Turkish and we thought it was time in the video that we try whenever we go to a new country we try to learn a few of the basic words yes and we always usually go to uh Google Translate for this in the past it's not it's usually somewhat accurate but we' definely been corrected before or Google I should say has been corrected by you guys in the comments so let us know if these aren't right but we will try all right we got uh hello hello so we listen maraba say it again do it again Marhaba let us know how bad that is next up here we got goodbye yeah I did actually type in goodbye I know sometimes goodbye and buy get different results but we're going to try goodbye goodbye one word g GLE GLE GLE GLE G that's not that is that right last but not least we have thank you probably the most important one I usually try to learn this in the places that we're going but this looks t t it looks like T but it sounds like she's saying T KES T KES T KES I I think we're butchering it sorry guys we had to try practice it in some restaurants and see how it goes well we've just come over to the bazaar here in ismir I believe it's pronounced camel ratte camel rat I think I'm pronouncing that horribly so I apologize if I'm saying that wrong do you remember how to say it in Turkish cam Al maybe maybe it's camir Al but anyway we're trying to learn Turkish as you guys know but there's so much to look at in this place yeah it's funny when you come sometimes in certain countries you come into like a market and it's low quality stuff often stuff like made in China not to you know but here it's like you walk in and immediately you're greeted with a bunch of jewelry some really nice stuff too I've been rather distracted walking down uh the hallway here look at all the jewelry here that's one of the things that you can't help but notice there is so much do you need a ring I I definitely don't need a ring but I'm always basically when we travel we don't really buy souvenirs or buy much but I would potentially buy like um I don't know maybe bracelet there's earrings look at all the stuff you guys there's so much here me obviously some of this is men's but everything is very beautiful so what this seems like to us is a low-key Grand Bazaar yes we've been to Istanbul before I mean before the pandemic I believe so yeah that was absolutely massive this is much more laid-back in the yeah we're here during a weekday so maybe on the weekends it gets quite a bit busier but right now it just feels really relaxed and low key and I like it yeah I like it I mean I feel like usually at the bazaar anyway there were kind of people were fishing at you to kind of come into their yeah and even the hallways were just packed we've come over now to the food part so you can see all these kind of colorful uh seating areas there's quite a few people here but it's still not packed is it no definitely not there's lots to look at though you can see here they kind of uh they're looking to fish you in a little bit more but I really like the decor maybe this is what I remember about the grand Bazar it's the at the food spots is where they try to actually kind of fish you in uh so not so much at the kind of souvenir shopping but they're not that aggressive me they ask say you want to come in basically yeah but nothing overly crazy we don't even know if we're hungry we're just kind of browsing around right now so we were kind of keeping our eye out for Turkish delight that's something we had before in Istanbul and it's always fun to have when you're here in Turkey haven't seen any so far but maybe not a bad thing for me cuz I wasn't going to eat it anyway funny enough something you might not know about turkey that we discovered the last time we were here is that it's really big for dental tourism and this time while we're here I'm getting some dental work done funny enough well last time you got dental work done as well when you had a crown break so I have two crowns in my mouth 2019 we were here I had a crown break right before we arrived and that's kind of when I discovered that turkey is known for for dental tourism and it's really really inexpensive to get stuff done here when we tell our friends about it I think they Envision Us in some like back room with a hammer and like something ridiculous they have the most beautiful Dental Offices here like state-ofthe-art and the prices are really good so I've been getting my other um I have so I have two crowns I got the other one replaced just the other day so I'm just kind of testing it out today seeing if it needs any adjustments we can give them I bet you first did you guys know that Dental tourism is a thing second in Canada it costs about $3 to $4,000 for a crown right yeah I'd say2 to $3,000 $2 to $3,000 somewhere around there here you can give them a ballpark range yeah anywhere from like 200 to 500 or so US dollar or something like that crazy so just to uh put that all into perspective it's actually cheaper to book a flight to Turkey fly over here have a vacation and get dental work done it's more expensive to just like be well in our old home City in Halifax and walk down the road and go to the dentist office I mean which would you pick yeah I hear you you can go on a vacation and get all your Dent work a lot of people come to get like implants and like major things that and it's funny like all the dental offices you basically the moment you contact them you get in contact with like a concierge they book we didn't do this we do our own they your hotels and British conci not not always but sometimes but they speak very good English if they are Turkish um and they they'll book your hotels they'll book transport for you they'll do all this stuff we we didn't need any of that we booked all our own stuff and just arrived at get this there's actually in the where she's going to the dentist there's like a PlayStation kind of Game Room Lounge as your SP they don't get too bored it's absolutely wild but you might be wondering like if you're from the West well specifically let's say Canada or America maybe you don't know about this it's the British mainly that come down here this is kind of like their Snowbird area like their Florida but they all come here for dental work one thing we didn't get a chance to do today is to eat a lot of Turkish food now there is a reason for that well one when we're not filming we're eating Turkish food all the time but two we're going to dedicate one of these upcoming videos entirely to Turkish food like the whole video is us eating super excited for that cuz honestly Turkish food is probably up there and probably our top five to 10 favorite countries for food oh easily maybe even in yeah top five I would say it's absolutely amazing if you guys don't know much about it get ready for that video now you might be wondering like where else are you going to go in Turkey well our plan this time is to stick around the ismir area we we are looking for recommendations something not too far from here if you guys have any let us know in the comments but we thought about going where again right now we're thinking about alati and cheshme that's kind of like on the peninsula uh so we're going to it's a little more beachy like I think a little more laid-back not so City like we like we like the beach especially after being in the third largest city in Turkey that's going to be so much fun so expect lots more videos coming up this isn't the only Turkish video and I don't even know to be honest how many are coming we're kind of just we we haven't planned our our we haven't planned when we're going to leaving turkey yet so plan I would say expect a lot of videos we'll see 100% if you don't know who we are for some reason it's Trevor and a delightful Travelers hit subscribe that will notify you for when our videos come out leave us a comment let us know what you think if you're watching from Turkey let us know and if you're not thanks for coming back each and every week you guys we really appreciate it all right guys that's it from izmir wishing you delightful travels see you soon [Music]
2024-09-17 19:15
