Antalya
Antalya and the “Turkish Riviera”
Leaving Cappadocia, you are getting closer to the chain of Mountain Taurus. On the coast, 600km long, Antalya welcomes exhausted tourists who have seen so much. This could be Nice or Marseilles, perhaps even a Greek port: Antalya is the Turkish Riviera. The city is expanding now that tourists are visiting and foreigners are settling. Its port has all the charm of a Mediterranean port: clear and turquoise water, small fishing boats with bright colours; one can even hear cicadas.
The old city, meanwhile, is incomparable. In ancient alleys, we walk in the footsteps of the Romans, the Byzantines and Seljuks, who were there long before the Ottomans. The Emperor Hadrian built a marble door, which still stands proudly. Fluted minarets stand alongside the ruins of a church and its multiple uses echo the many faces of this country: indeed, this old church in the 6th century was built on the foundations of a temple from the 2nd century and converted into a mosque after the Arab invasions in the 7th century. Thus, the three great monotheistic religions have shared the ruins of a single place; today, this is strongly symbolic.
<p style=”text-align: right;”><strong>Author: </strong>Vanessa Marcie</p>
