The rolling hills and sunflower fields of Thrace comprise the European part of Turkey, cut of from Turkey's Anatolian heartland in Asian by the Çanakkale Boğazı
(Dardanelles), the sea of Marmara and the Istanbul Boğazı (Bosphorus).
Standing at the gateway to the East is Edirne, dominated by one of the masterpieces of Ottoman art, the Selimiye Mosque. Its four great minarets stab the skyline and mark the transition from East to West.
As the demarcation line between East and West the Marmara region has a turbulent past. It was from ancient Abydos that the Persian King Xerxes spanned the Çanakkale Boğazı (Dardanelles) with his flotilla of ships, and nearly 2,400 years later these same straits were the scene of General Mustafa Kemal's (later Atatürk) great First World War victory over the Allied invasion forces. At Gebze, on the north coast of Marmara Hannibal lies buried, and a little further down the coast as Izmit the ancient Nicomedeia, which for a short period became the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. Just outside Iznik (Nicaea), the town that provided the Ottomans
with their magnificent tiles, the catastrophic First Crusade came to an end, and it was from Bursa that the tiny Ottoman principality expanded to become one of history's greatest empires. Many remains attest to the region's chequered history, from the Roman walls of Izmit and Iznik to the elegant Ottoman buildings of Bursa, such as the Green Mausoleum and the Great Mosque.
A historical Thomb
The MarmaraMap
ISTANBUL
"There God, man, nature and art have together created and placed the most marvellous view that the human eye can contemplate on earth".
Lamartine's words are a fitting tribute to this unique city, rising from the sparking waters of the Istanbul Boğazı (Bosphorus), into a striking
skyline of domes and minarets, bridging the continents of Europe and Asia and linking the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara.
In this most cosmopolitan of cities, past and present are synthesized. Byzantine brilliance and Ottoman opulence blend into this bustling port city, with its great liners at anchor and its little fishing boats bobbing on the waves.
Everywhere the citys contrasts are apparent, from the sirens of ships to the timeless sound of muezzins calling the faithful to prayer and from the sunlight flashing off the golden crescents on the domes of mosques to the hypnotic gaze of Byzantine mosaic figures.
A Padisah's Quilted Turban (Kavuk)
So often silhouetted by flaming sunsets is the old city, set on a triangular promontory between the Golden Horn and the Istanbul Boğazı (Bosphorus)
and defended on the landwar side by the massive Byzantine walls. Here the Emperor Justinian built Christendom's greatest church, St. Sophia,
yet rivalling the basilica in magnificence are the Mosque of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, built by the greatest Turkish architect Sinan and the
Mosque of Sultan Ahmet, the "Blue Mosque", with its six minarets and blue Iznik tiles.
Gold And Silver Pieces
Dominating the old city is the mysterious labyrinth of Topkapı Palace, the seat of the Ottoman sultans for 400 years. It was here
that the power politics of ruling an empire, that stretched from the Gates of Vienna to the Persian Gulf, were played off against a background of harem intrigue.
The jewelled turban crests, silken kaftans and priceless Chinese porcelains of the palace, bear witness to the grandeur of a bygone era.
and blue Iznik tiles.
