URLA
The sea stays behind you. Urla begins.
One face of our cove looks to the water, the other to the land: vineyards, olive groves and stone streets. Whether or not you stay with us, you have come this far and it is worth seeing.
6TH CENTURY BC
They have been pressing olive oil here for 2,600 years.
A few minutes inland from the cove lies Klazomenai, the ancient name of Urla. The olive press there is the oldest known in Anatolia — 6th century BC. Excavations in 2004–2005 uncovered fifteen basins cut into the rock, each for a different stage of the work. The method behind the oil you pour on your bread at breakfast was worked out on this soil before the common era.
Open to visitors. Worth confirming entry and current hours with the Urla municipality.
ZAFER CADDESİ
It was once the only road to Çeşme.
The street everyone calls "Sanat Sokağı" — the art street — is really named Zafer Caddesi. In the 1960s it was the only road between İzmir and Çeşme; all the traffic ran over these stones. When the road moved elsewhere the street fell quiet — and from the 2010s painters, ceramicists and woodworkers moved into stone houses dating back to the 1800s. Walk it in the late afternoon and you will see someone working through an open door.
THE VINEYARD ROUTE
The vines never left. The growers brought them back.
Winemaking in Urla is not a new fashion but an old habit that was interrupted. In 2016 the region's growers came together and gathered their estates onto a single route; what emerged is a road winding between sea-facing valleys, olive groves and the smell of pine. Most are small and work by appointment.
WHEN TO COME
Artichokes in spring, the sea in summer, quiet in winter.
Urla wakes in spring with its artichoke fields; the municipality's international artichoke festival falls in that season — the dates shift from year to year, so it is worth checking their announcement. Summer belongs to the cove. Autumn is the harvest. And in winter the town is yours: half the shops open, the streets empty, the sea rough and beautiful.
We are open all year.
- SPRING
- Artichokes
- SUMMER
- The cove
- AUTUMN
- The harvest
- WINTER
- Empty streets
PRACTICAL
Half a day is enough. A full day is better.
The town centre is small and walkable; the olive press and the vineyards need a car. Most of our guests spend the morning on the beach, the afternoon in town, and come back for dinner. It works the other way too: leave early for the vineyards, swim on the way back.
Directions and getting hereBOOKING
You will not see Urla in a day. Good thing there is a bed.
Stay in the cove and ask us about the town.