Antalya & the Mediterranean

The coast was divided in antiquity into distinct lands. Lycia in the west was a federation of cities such as Xanthos, Patara and Myra, whose people cut their tombs into the cliffs; Pamphylia around Antalya held the Greek cities of Perge, Aspendos and Side; and Cilicia in the east had Tarsus, the birthplace of St Paul. Antalya itself was founded as Attaleia by Attalos II of Pergamon in the 2nd century BC, and the Roman emperor Hadrian passed through in 130 AD, when the gate that bears his name was built. Antioch, today's Antakya, was one of the great cities of the Roman east, and it was there, according to the Book of Acts, that the followers of Jesus were first called Christians. St Nicholas was bishop of Myra.

In the Middle Ages the region changed hands repeatedly. Crusaders held the Principality of Antioch from 1098 to 1268, and an Armenian kingdom ruled Cilicia; the Seljuk sultan Alaeddin Keykubad took Alanya in 1221 and built its walls and Red Tower. The Ottomans absorbed the coast by the early 16th century.

Hatay followed a different path: after the First World War it formed part of French-mandate Syria, became a short-lived independent state in 1938 and joined Turkey in 1939. Kahramanmaraş earned the prefix "kahraman" (heroic) for its resistance to French occupation in 1920. The mass-tourism boom began in the 1980s, and the February 2023 earthquakes, centred in Kahramanmaraş province, destroyed much of old Antakya.

The region is several places at once. The Antalya coast is cosmopolitan and international, with German, Russian and Scandinavian visitors, foreign residents in Alanya and signs in several languages. In the Taurus, Yörük families, descendants of Turkic nomads, still drive flocks up to summer pastures, the yayla, and weave kilims and tents from goat hair.

Hatay has long had a mixed population. Sunni Turks, Arabic-speaking Alawites, Orthodox Christians of the Antiochian church and a small Jewish community lived side by side in Antakya, and Vakıflı near Samandağ is often called the last Armenian village in Turkey. The earthquakes scattered many of these communities, and whether they return is an open question. Adana has a reputation for heat, hot tempers and a loud, humorous street culture, and its folk songs and the Çukurova novels of Yaşar Kemal made the plain famous across the country.

Isparta is the rose capital of Turkey: the damask rose fields around the city supply rose oil and rosewater, and the harvest in late spring is a local event. Isparta was also known for its hand-knotted carpets, and Kahramanmaraş for its stretchy ice cream.

Antalya province is the region's most populous, with around two and a half million people, though Adana is the larger city. Adana and Mersin each have around two million in their provinces, and Hatay, Kahramanmaraş, Osmaniye, Isparta and Burdur are smaller.

Tourism dominates the coast from Kaş to Alanya, alongside vast greenhouses growing tomatoes and cucumbers for export, citrus groves and banana plantations around Alanya and Anamur. The Çukurova plain is among Turkey's most productive farmland, growing cotton, wheat, maize and citrus, and Adana has textile factories. Mersin is one of the country's largest ports, İskenderun in Hatay has large steelworks, and a large nuclear power station is being built at Akkuyu on the Mersin coast.

On the coast the year divides into a frantic summer and a quiet winter. Since 2023, daily life in Hatay, Kahramanmaraş and Osmaniye has been dominated by reconstruction: many families still live in container cities or temporary housing, and whole districts of Antakya are being rebuilt from scratch.

Antalya's own cooking is simple and seasonal: piyaz, a white-bean salad dressed with tahini, şakşuka of fried aubergine and pepper in tomato sauce, and fish grilled by the harbour. Further east the food grows more assertive. Adana kebap is hand-minced lamb and tail fat pressed onto a wide skewer and grilled over charcoal, served with raw onion and sumac; it is usually washed down with şalgam, a sour drink of fermented black carrot and turnip. Mersin is known for tantuni, finely chopped beef fried on a flat pan and rolled in thin bread, and for cezerye, a sweet of cooked carrot, nuts and coconut.

Hatay's cuisine is close to that of Syria. Its dishes include hummus, muhammara-style red-pepper spreads, oruk (bulgur shells stuffed with minced meat) and above all künefe, shredded pastry filled with a soft local cheese, baked, soaked in syrup and eaten hot. Kahramanmaraş gives its name to dondurma made with salep and mastic, which stretches and can be cut with a knife, and its red pepper flakes are sold across Turkey.

Inland, Isparta makes rose jam and rose-flavoured sweets, and Eğirdir is known for its apples and lake fish.

Antalya's Kaleiçi, inside the old walls, has Ottoman houses, the fluted Yivli Minare and Hadrian's Gate, with the Roman harbour below and the Antalya Museum nearby; the Düden waterfalls drop into the sea at the city's edge, and the mountain city of Termessos lies in the pines to the north. East along the coast are Perge, the theatre at Aspendos, Köprülü Canyon, and Side, whose Temple of Apollo stands on the shore. Alanya has its Seljuk castle on a rocky headland, the Red Tower and the Damlataş cave.

West of Antalya, the Lycian coast is quieter. The Lycian Way runs for more than 760 kilometres along the coast to near Antalya, passing Olympos and the eternal flames of the Chimaera above Çıralı, Myra's rock tombs and the church of St Nicholas at Demre, the sunken ruins of Kekova, and Patara's long beach. Kaş is the base for diving, boat trips to Kekova and Kastellorizo, and walks to Xanthos and the Letoon, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In Mersin province the Maiden's Castle rises from the sea at Kızkalesi, near the chasms of Heaven and Hell, and Tarsus has Cleopatra's Gate and St Paul's Well. Adana has its Roman stone bridge over the Seyhan, Osmaniye the Neo-Hittite hilltop site of Karatepe, and Antakya the Hatay Archaeology Museum's mosaics and the cave church of St Peter. Inland, the lake district around Isparta takes in Lake Eğirdir, the Kovada lake, and in Burdur the Roman city of Sagalassos and turquoise Lake Salda.