Foça (Phokaia)

Village / Town

The city of the seafarers who founded Marseille — a stone-house fishing town named after the monk seal, looking out to the Siren Rocks.

North of İzmir, Foça — ancient Phokaia — was home to one of the boldest seafaring peoples in history. From a small Ionian city, the Phocaeans founded colonies from one end of the Mediterranean to the other; the most famous is Marseille (ancient Massalia), founded around 600 BC and today France’s largest port. Emporion in Spain was their work too. The founding story of Marseille, in other words, begins exactly in this town.

The town’s name is tied to the sea as well: the Greek “phoke” means seal, and the region is a habitat of the endangered Mediterranean monk seal; Foça has therefore been declared a special environmental protection area. The Siren Rocks offshore are remembered as the home of the sirens who, in Homer’s Odyssey, drew sailors onto the rocks with their song. Old Foça’s stone houses, narrow streets, fishing harbour and the taverns lining the shore give the town a calm, authentic air. It is quite far from Bodrum, and fits into multi-day trips toward İzmir.