Urla, the Izmir town of olive presses and starred tables

Klazomenai and the quarantine island

Start at Klazomenai Ancient City & Olive Oil Workshop, an unfenced open-air site where low stone foundations run across the field and the sea and Karantina Island sit behind the press. The press is a sixth-century-BC reconstruction, and the workshop it belongs to is the oldest known olive-oil workshop in Anatolia. Nothing is ticketed and nothing needs booking. Coach groups and guided walking tours arrive routinely, so the field is rarely empty for long.

The adjacent Limantepe harbour mound and the underwater museum you will read about are both under excavation control, and divers are not admitted.

Karantina Adası (Quarantine Island) is a low scrubby island reached by a long narrow stone causeway running straight out of Urla harbour, sea on both sides of the road. Abandoned 19th-century French quarantine pavilions and disinfection halls line the island, windows shuttered. It is one of only three officially recognised quarantine islands in the world, and it costs nothing to enter. You can only go with a group appointment, booked through Urla or İzmir tourism on 0232 293 12 00; individual walk-ups are turned away. Make that call before you fix the rest of the day, or you will drive to a locked causeway.

Art Street and the old market

Urla Sanat Sokağı (Art Street), officially Zafer Caddesi, is the narrow pedestrian lane where the town's social life happens, a run of restored stone and plaster houses in ochre and white with bougainvillea over the doorways. Café chairs sit out under strung lights. Come late in the afternoon, when the studios are open and the lane is in shade. Potters' wheels and hand-painted ceramics spill onto the cobbles, and the ceramics studios Yıldızca, Çivit Mavi and Keramikos take workshop bookings by arrangement. Coffee and cake are ₺₺.

Malgaca Pazarı & Arasta Çarşısı runs in low covered rows beside Art Street. Arasta is Urla's oldest bazaar and Malgaca its oldest market, praised by Evliya Çelebi. Most traders open every weekday. A women-producers market runs on Saturdays and an antiques market on Sundays.

Trays of local olives and sheep's cheese sit beside sacks of herbs, with artichoke heads in spring. A knife-grinder and a watch-repairer work out of cubbyhole shops, tea glasses on the stools outside. Stallholders are used to visitors tasting before buying, and you do not need to book anything.

Two free museums in the old town

Arkas Sanat Urla fills a restored white Levantine mansion with tall shuttered windows and a walled courtyard garden. The rooms inside are high-ceilinged and cool, hung with 19th and 20th-century European paintings and Renaissance tapestries, with Roman antiquities in glass cases. Entry is free. It closes on Mondays and last admission is 17:30. Use it in the middle of the day, when the heat is worst, or when it rains.

Necati Cumalı Memorial & Culture House is a small whitewashed stone Aegean house with blue-green shutters and a fig-shaded yard, reopened after a long restoration. The poet's desk, typewriter and handwritten manuscripts are under glass, along with his spectacles and first editions. The house also keeps a children's reading room. Entry is free and the municipality runs it, two or three small rooms in all. Hours are quoted variously as 08:30 to 17:30 with a Sunday or Monday closure, so ring 0232 754 53 70 before you walk up. Ten minutes covers it, on the way to Art Street.

The olive oil museum at Uzunkuyu

Köstem Olive Oil Museum is in Uzunkuyu village, 20 minutes' drive west of the old town. Pair it with the wine route and leave the walkable centre for another part of the day. It is the largest olive-oil museum complex in the world: a huge stone-and-glass hall of carved millstones and timber screw presses, holding a full-scale replica of the 2,600-year-old Klazomenai mill. The museum also recreates 1930s İzmir shopfronts, and it all sits in a 20,000 m² arboretum of olive and cypress.

The complex was purpose-built for coaches and school parties, and demonstrations and workshops run on request if you phone ahead for a slot. It closes on Mondays. Entry is ₺, and the published figure is out of date, so check kzmurla.com before you set off.

The harbour quarter and the fish tables

Urla İskele is a working fishing harbour, small blue-and-white boats on moorings and nets drying on the quay. A line of awninged fish restaurants with white tablecloths faces the water, and the Karantina causeway runs out to sea at one end. Walk the quayside at sunset. For Urla katmeri, the local pastry, buy from a kiosk rather than ordering dessert at a restaurant table. The quay restaurants want a call on summer weekends.

Yengeç Restaurant has the awninged terrace on the İskele quay, white-clothed tables a few metres from the moored boats. Staff wheel the cold-meze trolley table to table with samphire, sea beans and octopus. Order the mezes by pointing at the trolley. Whole fish and rakı with ice follow, and long tables on the terrace are the house speciality. It opens at 12:00 and runs until late. Reserve on +90 232 752 11 52 for weekends. Prices are ₺₺₺.

Kum Denizi and the 2026 Blue Flag

Kum Denizi Public Beach is a kilometre of pale sand backed by lawns and tamarisk, Urla's hills behind and shallow calm gulf water in front. Access is free and step-free, with disabled facilities on site. A children's water-play park and a cycle path run behind the sand, with a municipal cafeteria alongside. Sunbeds and the café are ₺₺.

The beach has a confirmed Blue Flag for the 2026 season and is the most organised of Urla's six Blue Flag beaches. Flag season runs 1 June to 15 September. Outside those dates the sand is open and the facilities are shut.

The wine route at Kuşçular

Urla Şarapçılık (Urla Winery) at Kuşçular revived the Klazomenai wine name and anchors the Urla Wine Route. Start the route here for the context. The tour takes in stainless tanks and the barrel cellar, and the tasting room is a big designed space with a poured-concrete bar, rows of vines on the slope outside. Tours and tastings are by reservation from 13:00 on +90 232 759 0111. A tasting is ₺400, usually discounted against bottles you buy.

USCA Wines is a small family estate at Kuşçular, tasting tables set out in a gravel garden under olive trees with vine rows right behind. The owner or the winemaker often pours, and bottles from the Shakespeare-sonnet Sonnet range go on the table. Guided tastings need a reservation. It opens daily, from 12:00 on Mondays and from 11:00 the rest of the week, closing between 19:00 and 19:30, and it stays open through the year. Prices are ₺₺.

Teruar Urla is a low stone building among vines and olives at Kuşçular, with a long terrace looking over the rows and a dining room of pale wood and linen. Kitchen garden beds are visible from the tables. It holds one star and a Green Star in the 2026 guide, and Ezgi Serdaroğlu took the Michelin Service Award 2026. Ninety per cent of the produce comes from inside a 15 km radius, and you can taste the point being made about Urla terroir. Give notice if you want the terrace. It is also a small gastro-hotel, so you can eat and sleep on the same site. Prices are ₺₺₺₺.

Vino Locale and OD Urla

Vino Locale is a restored Urla stone house opening onto a walled courtyard, a vine and tree canopy over a handful of tables and the kitchen pass open inside. The 2026 Michelin Guide Türkiye promoted it to two stars, the first restaurant in İzmir ever to hold them. Sommelier Seray Kumbasar pours strictly local producers, and the wine list is Urla-route bottles only. Book weeks out. The courtyard takes couples and fours, and a party needs private dining or a buy-out arranged well ahead. Prices are ₺₺₺₺.

OD Urla sits in a working olive grove at Süt Pınarı, a glass-walled dining room built around its wood fire and grill, raw timber tables inside and vegetable beds and chickens beyond the glass. Osman Sezener cooks over fire, which is what 'od' means, and the restaurant holds a star and a Green Star in 2026. It is the kitchen that put Urla on international food maps. The tasting menu is ₺4,900 per person. Menus change monthly, and a second visit is never the same meal. Reservations go to [email protected]. A pool and a seven-room guesthouse stand behind the restaurant.

Where to stay

Narımor Urla is a restored old Urla mansion on a quiet lane off Eren Sokak, a shuttered stone façade with a courtyard of citrus trees. The dining room is a single candlelit space seating only a few tables, and it holds a star in the 2026 guide under Atilla Heilbronn. Dining is tasting-menu only from 18:30 at ₺6,400 per person, with rooms charged separately, and guests must be 14 or older. Rooms are few: reserve the room and the table together. The centre is walkable from the door, which is the argument for staying here after a three-hour menu.

Days, bookings and closures

Köstem and Arkas Sanat close on Mondays, and the Necati Cumalı house closes on a Sunday or a Monday, so ring before you go. Book Karantina Adası through the tourism office first, because a locked causeway rearranges a whole day, then reserve Vino Locale, the tasting-menu rooms and the winery tours as soon as your dates are fixed.

See the Izmir guide and the Izmir hotel search.