İzmit

Understand

thumb | 300px | Imperial Pavilion of Sultan Abdülaziz The first known city hereabouts, from maybe 700 BC, was called Astakos (Ἀστακός), and lay 20 km south, in what is nowadays Başiskele. It was at the tip of the Gulf of Izmit so it was an obvious place to establish a port trading between Anatolia and the Mediterranean. "Astakos" means lobster, so either the fishing was good or it indicated the pincer-like tip of the Sea of Marmara. To the north was the Kingdom of Bithynia bordering the Black Sea: this waged wars to gain Astakos and eventually won a pyrrhic victory. The wrecked town was rebuilt further north in 264 BC by Nicomedes I of Bithynia, who made it his capital and (no doubt after much thought) named it Nicomedia.

By 70 BC Rome had grown into the regional power, and Bithynia sought their aid against foes further east. Aid slid into influence then into colonisation and it became a Roman province. It was important to them as the borderland against even more dangerous foes, the Persians. Nicomedia became one of the four co-capitals of the Roman Tetrarchy until 330 AD when power was centralised in Byzantium, the later Constantinople / Istanbul. The Ottomans took the city in 1337, calling it at first İznikmid: the prefix "Iz" means "towards" so this meant the vicinity of Nicomedia, and eventually got shortened to İzmit.

The city was roiled by several conflicts, the last being the Greek-Turkish War of 1919-22, and by earthquakes. The most terrible recent shock was on 17 …

Get around

The area of most interest is around the clock tower and within walking distance.

The rest of town sprawls so you need a dolmuş or taxi. Of the two boulevards between clock tower and commercial district, İnönü Cd is one-way westbound while Cumhuriyet Cd is two-way, so look for transport accordingly.

Trams (Akçaray) run on a single line from the bus station in the east through the centre to Seka and the western suburbs.

See

thumb | 300px | The clock tower The Clock Tower (Saat Kulesi) is in the leafy plaza opposite the railway station, though it now feels cut off by D-100 highway roaring overhead. Built in 1901, it was one of a job-lot of neoclassical clock towers built all across the Empire to mark 25 years of the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1842-1918). He presided over a great expansion of the railways but a collapse of Ottoman power. He was deposed in 1907, and what with fear of assassination and 13 wives to mollify he didn't much get to travel and admire all his clock towers. The Izmit tower stands 16.4 m tall and is prettified with fountains; it was restored in 2006. is an alley winding up from the clock tower with many preserved or restored traditional Ottoman houses. Finest of these is the Selim Sirri Pasha Mansion, seldom open. Some 50 m east is the House of Atatürk and the National Struggle (Atatürk ve Milli Mücadele Anı Evi), intermittently open. was built shortly after the Ottoman conquest of 1332, and repaired after subsequent earthquakes. It's a simple low building. Fevziye Mosque is 500 m east of the railway station on Cumhuriyet Cd. It was first built in the early 1500s, repaired and rebuilt since, and completely destroyed in the 1999 earthquake so the present building is a replica. or "New Mosque" (Yeni Cuma Camii) was built in 1579. is a collection of mock-up Ottoman buildings. You may be able to stroll around at quiet times, but it's in regular use as a film and TV set, whe…