Municipalities around the world have been applying in recent years to become officially recognized as "slow cities" by the Italy-based Cittaslow organization. Now officials in Turkey's Gokceada are hoping to get their little patch of land recognized as a "slow" island.
Located in the northern Aegean, Gokceada (once known as Imroz), was formerly a predominantly-Greek island. Having lost a large part of its population over the decades, it still maintains a distinctly rustic feeling, with small-scale production of cheese, wine and olive oil still taking place there (one village even has an old Greek coffee house where the coffee are still manually ground using a mortar and pestle).
If it becomes an official "slow" destination, Gokceada would join the Agean town of Seferhisar, which in 2009 became Turkey's first "slow city."
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