In Turkey there is a village, Kuşköy, in the Black Sea region, where the inhabitants still communicate today through a whistled language called "kuş dili", which literally means "bird language". Developed centuries ago to transmit messages across the mountainous valleys where the voice could not reach, this language can replicate all the nuances of spoken Turkish through whistles and can be understood from up to one kilometre away. In 2017 it was added by UNESCO to the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list.
Turkey is a country that literally lives between two worlds: one part lies in Europe, the other in Asia, separated by the Bosphorus Strait. It is one of the oldest civilisations on the planet, with layers of history that overlap in every city and every dish. Hittites, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans: all of this passes through a country that today is modern and dynamic but still deeply rooted in its own traditions.
I lived three months in Izmir, the third largest city in Turkey, overlooking the Aegean Sea. It is one of the least visited destinations in the country, and that is perhaps exactly why it is one of my favourites. But let us start from the beginning, which was anything but calm.
I had left with an agency to work abroad. The flight was delayed by three hours, no one was going to pick me up at the airport, I had no SIM card and no cash. A great start.
I believe, however, that setting off with the right mindset makes every journey better, and for me this means one thing only: talking to people. I have always believed, and my travels have confirmed it, that on every journey you meet someone in the right place at the right time. On that plane stuck on the runway for three hours, I found myself sitting next to two Turkish boys who had been in Milan for their parents' work. In the time we spent waiting on board, a friendship was born. When we landed they accompanied me to the hostel where I would spend my three months and helped me communicate with the owner, who did not speak a word of English.
As did almost everyone else in the hostel, except for one girl — the only person among all those there who spoke decent English. She became my companion on the way home, the one who made me feel a little at home when I came back in the evenings.
The first few weeks were tough. Izmir is not very touristy and almost no one spoke English. I did not meet a single European during that period and even the simplest tasks required an enormous effort. At work too, things were not going as I expected, and the agency I had come with had practically stepped aside. From that I understood that sometimes it is better to go it alone.
I began learning a few words of Turkish out of pure necessity for survival. Thanks to the boys from the plane and my hostel companion, things were improving, but the cultural difference was evident every day. It never frightened me — quite the opposite: it made me understand how great my capacity for adaptation was, something I did not know I had until that point.
After about a month I met other young people who had left with the same agency: two Egyptian boys and two Tunisian girls. A wonderful group was born, culturally worlds apart from anything I had experienced before. We travelled as much as possible, we shared our cultures, our habits, our ways of seeing the world. I believe it was there that I truly began to fall in love with diversity.
Among the places visited, Istanbul and Cappadocia could not be missed — and however touristy they may be, they are truly worth the visit.
Istanbul is a city that carries the weight of having been the capital of three great empires, and you can see it at every turn: from the Hagia Sophia to the Grand Bazaar, from the historic neighbourhoods to the shores of the Bosphorus. It is a city that operates on two levels simultaneously and manages to hold them together in a unique way.
Cappadocia, on the other hand, is a landscape that is hard to believe is real until you are inside it. The rock formations, the churches carved into the tuff and the hot air balloons at dawn are something you rarely forget.
Living with locals allowed me to discover places that are far less well known. Alaçatı, with its stone houses and narrow alleys; Eskişehir with its canals and its youthful energy; the small inland Aegean villages where time seems to flow differently.
But above all it brought me to places whose names I still struggle to remember — places where real Turkish life happened, unfiltered and without attractions to photograph. Those were the most authentic moments of the journey.
Living in Turkey means dealing with food every single day, because here food is not just sustenance: it is the centre of social life.
The absolute protagonist is çay, the black tea served in a small tulip-shaped glass that accompanies every moment of the day from breakfast to the evening conversation. You do not enter a shop, sit down to talk to someone, or wait for anything without a çay arriving.
Then there is Turkish coffee, thick, prepared in a cezve and sipped slowly, with the grounds that remain at the bottom of the cup — which Turkish people still read today to tell the future. The simit, the sesame bread ring sold from street carts, is breakfast for those in a hurry. Meze is the way every important meal begins: small plates of aubergine, yoghurt, pulses and vegetables to share at the centre of the table. And then kebab, which in Turkey bears no resemblance to what you find outside the country, with regional variations that change from city to city.
Something that always surprises visitors is the generosity with which food is offered. In Turkey being hosted at someone's table is still a deep gesture, and to refuse is almost an offence.
It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life, precisely because it was not easy. The unexpected events of the first day, the month of solitude and adaptation, the work that did not function as it should: all of this made everything that followed even more precious. The group found by chance, the friendships born in unlikely circumstances, the places discovered thanks to those who truly lived there.
I recommend it to anyone who wants to put themselves to the test, knowing that things will not always go as planned and that it is exactly there that the real journey begins.
If you feel like living a similar experience, take a look at the Work Abroad section or book a free call to find out more.