Turkey is not the sort of place you would ever accuse of lacking history. And unlike certain other countries I won’t mention by name, it thankfully does not seem to have a penchant for bulldozing its historical built heritage and cultural relics.
Nope, Turkey is a country where history is all around you. Given its geographical position as a favoured crossroads of culture, and indeed civilization, throughout history, Turkey holds a veritable treasure trove of awe-inspiring mosques, old churches, crumbling fortresses and stunning Roman ruins. It is frankly amazing to be in a place that, while certainly getting on with life, traffic, modernity and all that jazz, manages to retain such a palatable sense of history.
The religious complexes in Istanbul are nothing short of stunning. The Roman ruins at Efes are beyond impressive. And yet, it was in the smaller, more unassuming locations that I truly found the history shining through. In Anamur, a small coastal town just north of Cyprus, one can swim in the warm waters of the Mediterranean and see old Roman columns lying quietly on the seabed, accompanying the ruins that dot the hill overlooking the isolated beach. On the other side of town, an unbelievably old fortress sits crumbling between the sea and the mountains (one which I got to visit thanks to the hospitality of my girlfriend’s grandfather).
However, it was in Selcuk that I was most impressed. The town is just beside the abandoned Greco-Roman city of Ephesus, and the aqueduct serving the latter apparently ran through the site of the modern-day Turkish town. So, you’d figure that, as the town expands and the aqueduct gradually falls into disrepair, the remains of the Roman structure would eventually be crowded out, demolished and forgotten. Well, not so in Selcuk. The supporting columns of the aqueduct, although crumbling, still trace the route of the original structure to a rather surreal effect since they stand randomly and untouched amidst the bustle of the town that rose up around them. Well, actually, I guess it would be erroneous to say completely untouched. At some point, about one hundred years ago as a friendly local restaurant owner informed my girlfriend, someone found these aqueduct columns to be in the way of their planned home. So, you’d think the natural thing to do would be to get rid of the columns and build your house (besides, it always seems that in the past, history never mattered as much). Well, not so in Selcuk as I said. Instead, the home was built between two of the Roman aqueduct columns, to produce what in my opinion is the coolest building in the world. How’s that for re-adaptive use?
