Izmir Inland Excursions: Manisa and the Sultan Murad II Mosque, Magnesia at Sipylus Royal Court, Turgutlu Grape Harvest, Thyatira and the Seven Churches Circuit, and the Hermus Valley Agricultural Landscape
The Izmir inland excursion route covers the Manisa city and the Murad II mosque, the Magnesia ad Sipylum ancient royal court and the Niobe rock sculpture, the Turgutlu grape harvest and the sultana raisin production, the Thyatira Seven Churches of Revelation connection, and the Hermus Valley agricultural landscape.
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Manisa: The Ottoman City and the Muradiye Mosque
Manisa, the Aegean provincial capital 40 kilometers from Izmir, preserves the most complete collection of Ottoman-period mosque and medrese architecture in the Aegean Turkey after Bursa, with the Muradiye complex of 1522 built by the future sultan Murad II during his Sancakbeyi posting in Manisa representing the finest single Ottoman mosque in the Aegean region. The Manisa herb festival in March, when the city celebrates the mesir paste herbal medicine that the Ottoman court physician invented in the 16th century, is the most unusual single traditional cultural event in the Izmir province.
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Magnesia ad Sipylum: The Ancient Royal Court
Magnesia ad Sipylum, the ancient city 35 kilometers east of Izmir on the Sipylus mountain slope, was the royal court of the Seleucid and the Lydian kings before Smyrna and the site of the Battle of Magnesia in 190 BC where the Roman consul Scipio Africanus defeated the Seleucid king Antiochus III, effectively ending the Seleucid presence in Asia Minor and establishing the Roman hegemony over the Aegean. The Niobe rock sculpture on the Sipylus mountain above Manisa - the 3,500-year-old Hittite relief of a seated goddess that the Greeks identified as the weeping Niobe turned to stone by Zeus - is the oldest surviving monumental sculpture in the Aegean Turkey.
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Turgutlu: The Sultana Raisin Capital
Turgutlu, the agricultural town 50 kilometers east of Izmir in the Hermus Valley, is the center of the Aegean sultana raisin production that made the Izmir province the largest raisin exporter in the world in the 19th and early 20th centuries and that transformed the Hermus Valley landscape into the most extensively cultivated vine landscape in Turkey. The Turgutlu raisin processing cooperatives and the late September grape harvest season provide the most complete access to the Aegean agricultural tradition that the ancient fertility of the Hermus valley soil established.
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Thyatira: The Seven Churches Letter to the Purple Dye City
Thyatira, the ancient city now covered by the modern Akhisar 90 kilometers north of Izmir, was one of the Seven Churches of Revelation addressed by John the Apostle and the city associated with Lydia the purple cloth seller of Acts 16 who was the first European convert to Christianity in the Paul the Apostle tradition. The Thyatira church letter in Revelation commends the congregation for the love, the faith, and the service while warning against the Jezebel false prophetess - the most specific and the most psychologically complex of the seven letters.
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Hermus Valley: The Aegean Agricultural Heartland
The Hermus Valley, the most fertile agricultural plain in the Turkish Aegean extending from the Bornova suburb of Izmir east to the Usak plateau, produces the concentrated grape, the fig, the cotton, the tobacco, and the olive oil that made the Izmir province the most economically productive single region in the Ottoman empire. The Hermus Valley agricultural landscape, visible from the IZBAN suburban train between Izmir and Aliaga, is the geographical foundation of the Izmir commercial importance that Smyrna maintained from the Roman period through the Ottoman to the Republican Turkey.
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Izmir Practical: The City as Aegean Hub
Izmir Adnan Menderes Airport, 20 kilometers south of the city centre and connected by the IZBAN suburban train in 25 minutes, receives the domestic flights from Istanbul, Ankara, and 20 Turkish domestic routes and the international scheduled and charter flights from the major European airports. The Izmir ferry connections to Chios in 1 hour 30 minutes and the inter-city bus services to Selcuk, Cesme, Bergama, and Manisa make Izmir the most conveniently connected single base city in the Turkish Aegean.