Hays Travelogue

There are plenty of old castles between Antakya and Adana, and on our drive to the airport, Mike wanted to see some. None of them were very well known, and none of them had other tourists. That might be because, even though they are near the highway, you have to be persistent in order to find them. I don’t think we could have found them without John Freely’s book, The Eastern Mediterranean Coast of Turkey, an informative combination of travel advice and history.

One of our friends says that Turkey’s motto is “Safety Last,” and these castles demonstrate why. There are no guard rails or guards for that matter. There are broken arches, crumbling walls, and falling rock. When walking along what you think is ground, you might suddenly come upon a hole that is in the ceiling of a subterranean part of the castle. You can’t believe you are allowed into them. You can’t believe your luck. It’s every kid’s dream.

We saw three castles – Bakras Castle near Belen, Toprakkale and Yılankale near Osmaniye.

We also stopped at the Sokollu Mehmed Pasa Complex at Payas. This includes a caravanserai, a mosque, a medressa, and next door, a castle. There were no tourists, but the door keeper, who spoke no English, opened the whole complex for us, and gave us simple explanations in Turkish.

Finally, a word about returning rental cars at the Adana airport. The car rental desks are near the baggage claim in the arrivals lounge. If you are not arriving by airplane, there is no way into the arrivals lounge. You have to enter the departures lounge, knock on an out-of-the-way door that separates arrivals from departures, and be admitted by a security guard who will escort you to the car rental desk.

Tags:   Adana · Bakras · Sokollu Mehmed Pasa Complex · Toprakkale · Turkey · YilankaleNo Comments