Turkey - At the Coasr of Light Between Izmir And Bergama - In The Land Of The Gold King Croesus (104/151)

Turkey - At the Coasr of Light Between Izmir And Bergama - In The Land Of The Gold King Croesus (104/151)

Izmir - third largest city in Turkey and seaport metropolis on the central Aegean coast of Asia Minor. "Tismuma" was the name given to the settlement three thousand years ago by the Hittites. Under the Greeks, Romans and Byzantines "Smyrna" developed into a metroplois with over a hundred thousand inhabitants at that time. In the 15th century the Ottomans finally gave it its present name with the prefix "Gavur Izmir", in English "Infidel Izmir", for until the beginning of the 20th century Christians, Greeks and Armenians comprised the majority of the population. Ferries constantly cross the natural bay of the harbour from one district to another. Thousands of commuters thus avoid the dreadful traffic congestion of the four-million city on their way to work in the mornings and back home in the evenings. Nowhere else in the Turkey of Asia Minor is the influence of the West as palpable as here in Izmir. If the people anywhere in Asia Minor have set their course for Europe, then here - the city is modern, cosmopolitan, Kemalistic. Situated in the Anatolian highlands, east of Izmir, is Sardis, once the golden residence of the fabled King Croesus, in the hinterland of the Gulf of Edremit is the ancient Pergamon, now known as Bergama. The wide bay is lined by the Turkish "Olive Riviera". The oil from the olive trees has been part of the lives of all the inhabitants here since Antiquity. Now, however, the magic of this landscape on the "Coast Of Light", which has endured for thousands of years, is threatened the environmental pollution caused by gold mining.