Candarli is a pleasant seaside town with fairly decent beach, located about halfway between Ayvalik and Izmir. The town is popular with Turkish tourists in the summer. But the main reason of my visit was to take a look at the town's landmark, the fortress-castle first built by the Genovese in the 13th century and later rebuilt by the Ottoman Grand Vizier Candarli Halil Pasha in 1450 as a strategic fortification on the coast to protect the royal residence in Manisa.
However, when I arrived at Candarli, the castle was undergoing extensive restoration which would take up to three years. All I could see of the castle was its exterior walls and the towers.
Although it was almost end of March when I visited Candarli, the wind was so icy and bitter cold, it felt like winter in Scotland. And the sky was overcast with clouds, which gave the place a very desolate feel. As tourist season in Turkey's northern Aegean coast does not really start until May or June, the whole town was virtually empty, with most seaside shops, restaurants and cafes closed for the winter months.
Although the part of the town facing the seaside was in a 'compete shut-down' mode - I could not even find a cafe or a snack bar that was open for business - fortunately signs of life were still available in the tiny town centre of Candarli. It was market day when I visited the town, and the little square in the centre was lined with colourful baskets and trays of fresh fruits, vegetables and other farm produce, which make for some very beautiful photo motifs.
Candarli, like so many other towns in this part of Turkey, also used to be a place with a sizeable Greek population. After their forced resettlement in Greece in 1923, all that left in Candarli of their centuries-long existence are the Sakiz-style stone houses that can still be found in considerable numbers in and around Candarli's town centre. Many of them have now been converted to other uses, including the town's main Post Office and various shops and cafes along the seafront.
Personally speaking, I found Candarli not as attractive as the other formerly Greek towns in this part of the Aegean coast, as both Ayvalik and Eski Foca all have a far more unfortgettable ambience, even in winter, than Candarli. It seems something is lacking in this town, which makes it a rather unremarkable place in comparison to her more memorable neighbours. Of course, the whole place could have felt completely different in the summer - I also found Vienna a very pale and unattractive city during my first visit to the Austrian metropole in winter, but later came to fall madly in love with the city after visiting it once more during the early spring time - but for the time being, the thing I remember most about the short visit to Candarli was the non-stop freezing wind that swept through the town.
How to go there: Frequent buses leave Izmir's Otogar at regular intervals and stop along Candarli's sandy beach and the town's bus station, before heading towards the seaside town of Dikili further north. Or one can take the Izban, Izmir's suburban train system, all the way to Aliaga and change onto a mini-bus that connects the Izban station of Aliaga with the bus station of Candarli. The journey takes about 1.5 - 2 hours each way.
Copyrights@2012. All text and photos by YC Cheng. All Rights Reserved.
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