Sightseeing

[The March Hare]

Exploring Turkey’s Mediterranean coast

Starting from Fethiye and Gocek on the western edge of the Turkish Riviera and continuing all the way to Iskenderun, you will find a fascinating coast.






The southern coast of Turkey from west to east begins with a series of bays, clear blue water, interesting rock formations and sandy beaches. A number of resorts and hotels have been built there in recent years, but some care has been taken to not over build, or at least not yet.



Starting from Fethiye and Gocek on the western edge of the Turkish Riviera and continuing all the way to Iskenderun, you will find a fascinating coast. If you are taking one of the famous blue voyages, you will have a firsthand chance to see the remains of some of the oldest cultures that inhabited this furthest outpost of Central Asia – massive stone coffins and rock tombs from the Lycian period (fifth century B.C.). And you can get an impression of what it must have been like to be in Anatolia, actually in the world at a time when everything was still pristine. The many bays and inlets are great places to go ashore and eat, or you can do it on your boat: Swimming, snorkeling and fishing help pass the time as you unwind from your busy schedule at home.



If you aren’t interested in touring by boat, there is an airport now at Dalaman, where regularly scheduled flights as well as charters land and from which it is easy to reach this part of Turkey. Or if you enjoy camping, you’ll find a number of designated sites where you can bed down.



Fethiye is a typical town located at the head of a bay that hosts pine-covered islands. It has no real claim to fame except as a good place to have a great holiday. Traveling east, you pass by many Greco-Roman ruins that have mostly been neglected. Patara, Kalkan and Kas used to be inhabited, for the most part by Greeks, until World War I. Later Turks began to fill the empty spaces.



An interesting and different place is Demre, where St. Nicholas was a bishop in the Christian Church. St. Nicholas is celebrated in numerous countries as Father Christmas or Santa Claus. Every year at Christmas time, services are held in the church built over the tomb of St. Nicholas, with the encouragement of Turkish authorities in order to promote tourism.



Antalya is the largest city in the southwestern part of Turkey. It can be reached easily by air or sea. If you’re driving there from Bodrum, you’ll have a chance to see Pamukkale, a natural hot springs with so many minerals that limestone deposits have created pools and walls, in short, a magnificent sight.



The city of Antalya boasts a good museum and the nearby Fluted Minaret. But it’s the walled old city which goes down to the harbor that is fascinating. Here are traditional Turkish houses with overhanging upper stories. For those who would like to tour by boat, it’s easy to find one that will take you to see nearby waterfalls, caves and really good beaches. The Roman city of Aspendos, not too far from Antalya, is famous for its huge theater, the scene of stage productions ranging from folk dances to opera.



Again there are many cities along the south coast and traveling east, the next city of any size is Alanya, with its Red Tower that guards the approaches to the 820-foot-high rock on which the town is built.



From there on to Adana lies the Cilician plain and an industrialized portion of the country, thanks to its fertile soil and position as a crossroads of sea trade between Egypt and other parts of the Middle East and north through the Taurus Mountains to central Anatolia. Adana, Mersin and Iskenderun have a charm of their own.

[The March Hare]

Turkish museums as an expression of culture

Turkey has fascinating museums that range from open-air archaeological sites such as the one at Ephesus to the stately Istanbul Archaeology Museum and the Ethnological Museum in Ankara


Museums came rather late to Turkey. For many years the only one was the Archaeology Museum just outside of Topkapi Palace. Established by Osman Hamdi Bey in order to house the archaeological finds he had excavated at Sidon, in today’s Lebanon, the gray stone building was constructed over a 10-year period from 1881 to 1891, when it opened to the public. For decades afterwards no changes were made to the exhibits, although many other items were being added to its collections. Only recently has this situation changed.



Museums express what a culture wants visitors to see of itself. In Turkey that view is still in its infancy. Going to a museum here is to see what there is in a collection, such as artifacts, rather than a lively presentation of how these artifacts were used. Exceptions are the Koc family’s Sadberk Hanim Museum and the presentation of how parts of a collection actually were part of everyday life, such as the lower rooms at the Turkish-Islamic Works of Art Museum and at the Calligraphic Museum in Istanbul as well as the Ethnological Museum in Ankara.



The restoration of buildings that comprise museums in Turkey is just that, as close as possible to how the original looked for those who are interested. Actually they can be fascinating – Topkapi and Dolmabahce Palaces, which are now museums, immediately spring to mind as well as the Sabanci University’s Sabanci Museum, where one can get the sense of how that family lived in addition to seeing brilliant exhibitions brought from abroad.



Turkish museums are actually divided into state-owned and privately established. The state-owned museums, unfortunately, are not well funded under a ministry that has not only cultural aspects to take into consideration but tourism, as well, in a double portfolio.



Across Turkey there are many museums, some in the traditional style and some are open-air exhibitions such as Ephesus, Bergama and Aspendos or the fortress at Bodrum, which has been adapted to house a permanent exhibit based on underwater finds just off the city’s coast. Other places are used for other purposes. For example, the large Ottoman fortress of Rumeli Hisar in Istanbul becomes an open-air theater in summer for concerts and other kinds of performances.



One of the most interesting groups involved in establishing museums is the Koc Group. A number of years ago it restored and set up a museum on Istanbul’s Golden Horn devoted to manufactured products such has old cars, planes, submarines and the like. Most recently, the Koc Group opened a second museum in Ankara along the same lines.



So private or corporate money has been flowing into the museum scene. Another recently opened museum in Istanbul, thanks to the Eczacibasi Group, is an art museum called Istanbul Modern. Most recently Turkcell announced that it would provide lighting for the archaeological site of Ephesus.



Hopefully in the future the government will invest larger amounts of money in



museums around the country. They add to Turkey’s drawing power when it comes to encouraging tourists to enjoy the country and its many different aspects.

[juicyjude]

Cheers for that Bob, been to Aspendos, what a great experience, breathtaking.

[jj]

Some good information there Bob, thanks for that