Qualla: Çeşme https://qualla.com/cesme en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:34:08 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/c/cesme-wk/hero-small.webp Qualla: Çeşme https://qualla.com/cesme Çeşme: Introduction https://qualla.com/cesme/ Photo credit AlekH at English Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0. The name means fountain, and Çeşme has been promising water for a long time. Hot springs rise here along the coast, some of them bubbling straight up through the seabed, warming the shallows where bathers wade out. The town sits at the very tip of a long peninsula at the western edge of Turkey, so far west that the Greek island of Chios floats just ten kilometers across the water, close enough to be an easy day trip by ferry. This is the end of Anatolia, where the land runs out and the Aegean takes over.

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Image: AlekH at English Wikipedia | CC BY 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/c/cesme-wk/swfc-e-me-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Çeşme: The Castle and the Lion https://qualla.com/cesme/ Photo credit Rarelibra, Public domain. The old town gathers around a squat stone castle, a reminder that Çeşme was once a port that mattered more than Izmir, trading through the Middle Ages with the Genoese who held nearby Chios. It passed to the Ottomans in 1566 without a fight, after which commerce drifted eastward ...

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Image: Rarelibra | Public domain

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/c/cesme-wk/swfc-e-me-the-castle-and-the-lion.mp3 0:06 2 full Çeşme: The Battle in the Bay https://qualla.com/cesme/ Photo credit Abdullah Kartal at de.wikipedia, Public domain. That battle is the town's brush with world history. In July 1770, during the Russo-Turkish War, a Russian fleet under Aleksey Orlov cornered the Ottoman navy in the bay at Çeşme and destroyed it almost entirely, burning the trapped ships through a long night of fire. It was one o...

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Image: Abdullah Kartal at de.wikipedia | Public domain

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/c/cesme-wk/swfc-e-me-the-battle-in-the-bay.mp3 0:06 3 full Çeşme: Springs, Sand, and Wind https://qualla.com/cesme/ Photo credit Abdullah Kartal at de.wikipedia, Public domain. Modern Çeşme is built on simpler pleasures. A few kilometers from town, Ilıca is the spa quarter, where the thermal waters that gave the town its name feed hotel pools or rise warm in the sea itself. The beaches string out along the peninsula, Boyalık on the Ilıca strip, Altınkum...

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Image: Abdullah Kartal at de.wikipedia | Public domain

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/c/cesme-wk/swfc-e-me-springs-sand-and-wind.mp3 0:06 4 full Çeşme: A Church Turned Gallery https://qualla.com/cesme/ Photo credit Elelicht, CC BY-SA 3.0. Among the nineteenth-century Ottoman houses and back alleys near the castle stands Ayios Haralambos, a Greek Orthodox church built in 1832 and now serving as an art gallery and cultural venue. Its survival is a thread back to the mixed world this coast once was, before the popula...

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Image: Elelicht | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/c/cesme-wk/swfc-e-me-a-church-turned-gallery.mp3 0:06 5 full Çeşme: Where to Go Next https://qualla.com/cesme/ Photo credit OscarKosy, CC BY 3.0. Çeşme makes a natural base for the whole peninsula. Inland lies Alaçatı, the stone-house village with its cobbled streets, bougainvillea, and photogenic windmill, a short hop away by dolmuş. Across the water, Chios is the easy day-trip to Greece, reachable by fast catamaran in ab...

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Image: OscarKosy | CC BY 3.0

]]> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/f/c/cesme-wk/swfc-e-me-where-to-go-next.mp3 0:06 6 full