Where is Gökçeada island Turkey
Gökçeada is the largest island of Turkey and one of the two islands that the Allies after its defeat in the First World War left in the Aegean Sea. All other Aegean islands, has been given to Greece although the islands lie near the Turkish coast. Greece has given all other islands as a kind of military loot and the compensation for the territory which was occupied in the peninsula of Asia, but they had to leave Turkey.
Gökçeada Island (Greek name - Imbros or İmroz, officially changed to Gokceada, Gökçeada since July 29, 1970) is also known as the Windward Islands by the fierce winter winds, which are a kind of wind, often violently dashing from the mainland. The wind often have to stop ferry services to Gökçeado as well as across the Dardanelles. The island is pretty large, it is around 30 km long and 13 km wide with the highest point at 500 m altitude.
The population of Gökçeada was even after the first world war and after the replacement of population still Greek. In the years around 1950 the Turks expelled the Greeks. Today, the island remained deserted and now completely overgrown villages. In the last time the villages are visited by the Greek tourists, the descendants of exiles Greek population. Many residents and other visitors to the island seeking to get permission to restore the villages. They are planing to build suits and appartments in the villages , and participated in an ambitious island tourism.
Greek nostalgics
The island has from all the Greek buildings intact and carefully locked only Orthodox churches. In spite of tourism on the island, Orthodox churches are not on display for tourists despite the fact that inside are supposedly very interesting frescoes from the 10th century. Only in the first week of July, when there is a lot of Greeks to bless them and there is also the Patriarch of Istanbul, tourists can sneak in processions and celebrations, and throw an eye on these sites.
Today, the island resides around nine thousand Turks, and their number is increasing as the enough of space. The soil is good for cultivation and the sea is full of fish, tourism is rapidly enforced. On the island flourished real pine forest, which is a real rarity in the Greek islands. The island has a lot of olive trees, and there is also growing tobacco. The first tourists started coming here after 2000 - most of visitors were Turks.
Foreign tourists of the Gökçeada island
Ferries are ready for tourists, but the beaches are not yet. On the island are the roads partly paved and partly gravel road. Foreign tourists are already coming (mostly Germans) by a ferry from both sides - Straits of the Dardanelles and Cankala. The main town of the island is Gökçeada, which lies above the northeast coast about five kilometers from the ferry port.
City of Gökçeada is rapidly modernizing and building tourist facilities with help from the government, there have been first grown Hotels - a small but renowned for its good cuisine. The beaches are vast but currently poorly equipped, the other beaches are tourists still hard to find. According to these beaches business partners have already put a large panels with drawings of future hotels, pools, restaurants and entertainment centers. Those are the places such as kokina, Kapikaya and Yuval, which should be in a few years appeared in Turkey's tourist offer. Tourist operators count on a visit of Russian tourists because the island is relatively close to the Russian border. Also there is another population of tourists from Western Europe, who are always eager to visit new destinations..
Tours from Gökçeada island to Istanbul, Bursa and Troy
The island also has the advantage of its fairly proximity to the town of Istanbul. Travel agencies and other tourists service providers organize day trips for tourists by speedboat to Istanbul or by bus to closer town of Bursa. City of Bursa is an old Ottoman capital, which attract the tourists because it is certainly more charming city as a metropolis on the Bosphorus.
Travel agencies and already holidaymakers are planned boat trips to the entrance of Dardanelles and further to the little Asian side, where the ruins of legendary Troy stand. Archaeologists - the first was Schliemann in the seventies of 19 th century, found there a staggering nine layers foundations of the former towns, which have been up there several thousand years ago.
People also say that Turkish jewelers in European museums are looking for Trojan valuables, particularly gold jewelry which is adorned Schliemann's wife Sofia. Turkish jewelers should be produced conclusive copies of jewelry and sell them to the tourists in Troy.