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Archive for the Category »Places of Interest «
Alara Inn (Alara Han)
Built in 1232 by Sultan Alaaddin Keykubat, the Alara Inn is located on Alara Creek. The 2000 m2 inn is made entirely of cut stone. The guardhouse, fountain, mosque and baths are in mint conditiona and certainly worth seeing.
Hadrian’s Gate (Hadrianus)
Today the historical old city of Antalya known as Kaleici (the inner castle) is surrounded by two walls, most of which have fallen down. The inner wall encloses the harbour in a semicircle. As a result of restoration, Kaleici has turned into a major tourist centre with guest-hou-ses, bars, shops and restaurants, and the Roman harbour has been turned into a modern, well-equip-ped marina.
Anamur is the westernmost town of the province of Mersin. This is the most important banana growing area of Turkey. The “Anamur banana” is a species of banana which exhibits a very pleasant aroma. Anamur has only recently become a tourism centre. With its long, spacious beach, unpolluted sea, rich history, caves, and houses with a distinctive architecture, Anamur is a multifaceted tourism centre.
Archaeological research tells us that the tradition of having a second house up on a plateau, in addition to the main house on the plain or on the coast, has existed since ancient times. In the Abanoz, Güğül Tepesi, Demiroluk, Şıhardıcı, Domuz Beleni and Çandır plateaux, there are signs of settlements going back as far as Roman times.
It is known that when the Turks first came to this area, their main livelihood was keeping animal herds and they exhibited a nomadic life style. They spent the summers on the high plateaux and towards winter they descended to the plains. Later they stopped using tents and settled in houses with steep roofs, called “sayvant”. Nowadays they live mainly in concrete buildings.
The Yörük nomads spent the winter in villages like Gerce, Karalar and Güneybahsiş, and in mid March went up to the Anamur plateaux or to the Barcın Plateau on the border with Ermenek. Their houses were small and simple and occupied an area that varied between 15 and 20 square metres, according to the number of people in the household. During the 4-6 months of the summer heat the people lived in these small houses (evcik). The houses would be used again the following year. There were houses in the plains around the fields and orchards, with roofs made of reeds (saz), and these were called saz evcik. There were houses in the plains around the fields and orchards, with roofs made of reeds (saz), and these were called saz evcik
The richer people lived in houses called sayvant when they went up to the plateau. The sayvants were made of black limestone, mud mortar and wooden horizontal beams that in larger buildings extended all along the floor and distributed the weight over a greater area. The roofs of the sayvants were covered with wooden beams and juniper bark. Nowadays, when the roofs need repairing the juniper bark is substituted with zinc sheets. Since the roads leading to the plateaux are now suitable for motorised vehicles, the usage of concrete and bricks has increased.
The building of houses like the evcik and sayvant has been forgotten. However there are a few surviving examples that can be seen in the plateau settlements.