Kadifekale

About this place

This is the hill, 186 metres above the centre of İzmir, where Lysimachus, one of Alexander the Great's generals, refounded Smyrna in the 3rd century BC, and the slopes below it have never been empty since. The name means 'velvet castle', which is a prettier thing than the stones themselves: what stands today are medieval walls and towers on Hellenistic footings, restored in stages by the municipality since 2007, with five towers on the west side and a stretch of the southern wall surviving from the older circuit. Do not come for the ruin as such. It is modest, and nothing on site explains it. Come for the view. From the ramparts the whole Gulf of İzmir opens out: Konak and its harbour directly below, Karşıyaka on the far shore, mountains behind, and the ferries drawing lines across the water between them. In the hour before sunset the gulf turns the colour of hammered copper, and that is the slot worth building the day around. Inside the walls there is a plain tea garden, a big vaulted cistern, Roman in origin by the usual account, rebuilt by the Byzantines and in use into Ottoman times, and the small domed castle mosque, the Kale Mescidi, which an inscription copied by the traveller Evliya Çelebi dates to 1308, making it probably the oldest Turkish building in İzmir; both were restored together in 2015-16. Every Saturday since the summer of 2019 the Pagos producers' market sets up between the walls: olive oil, cheese, honey and tandoor bread from İzmir's villages, many of the sellers women from the neighbourhood itself. It is the best reason to pick a Saturday. Getting up is easy by taxi from Konak in about fifteen minutes, or on bus 33 from the Bahribaba stop near Konak Square. Walking up through the old Agora quarter takes a steep half hour through poor, crumbling lanes; skip it with a pushchair and skip it after dark. The neighbourhood around the castle is hard-up rather than dangerous in daylight, but daylight is the rule, and expect no visitor facilities and no clean toilets. With children the visit is short and easy: the ground inside is mostly level, the grass invites running about, and the tea is priced for locals, not tourists. The thing to watch is what is happening on the north slope below: the excavation of Smyrna's Roman theatre, which seated around twenty thousand and which the municipality is funding through 2027, with a plan to turn the ground between it and the castle into an archaeological park. It is not open to visitors yet, but it belongs to the same ensemble that put Kadifekale, with Kemeraltı and Basmane, on UNESCO's tentative list in 2020 as the Historical Port City of İzmir. In August the sun on this hilltop is merciless: make it the last stop of the day, never the first.