Adana Travel

Famed for what has become one of Turkey's most ubiquitous dishes, the spicy minced meat Adana kebab, and for the cotton production which kick-started the 20th century economic boom of this still growing city, Adana is less well-known as a tourist destination.

This is at least partially understandable, with the Mediterranean a good 30 kilometers or so away to the south, the surrounding flatlands of the über fertile Çukurova plain lacking the picturesqueness associated with more conventional holiday spots and urban and industrial sprawl inexorably working their way out into the countryside surrounding this, Turkey's fifth largest conurbation. But there is enough history in the city itself to keep most people occupied for at least a day, and with much to see in the immediate environs a weekend's jaunt to Adana can be approached with some enthusiasm, especially given the city's wide range of hotels and eating places.

A good starting point is the monumental (it can hold 28,000 worshippers) Sabancı Camii, the largest mosque in Turkey. Completed in 1998, its massive bulk is symbolic of the piety of many of Adana's inhabitants, who raised half of its enormous budget, and of the powerful Sabancı family, who coughed-up the other 50 percent. In classic rags-to-riches fashion, in 1921 the penniless teenager Ömer Sabancı walked from his Central Anatolian village home south across the Toros Mountains to the Çukurova plain near Adana. He worked himself up from picking cotton in the fields to running his own spinning plant before founding, in the 1950s, the largest textile manufacturing company in Turkey. Every Turk knows the rest of the story, as Sabancı Holdings is now the second largest company in the country.

To be frank, the vast majority of new mosques in Turkey lack any architectural merit and most are poor, ill-proportioned concrete imitations of their sublime Ottoman forerunners. This does not hold true with the Sabancı Camii. OK, it is largely concrete (though you'd never tell as the grey stuff is well-hidden beneath beautifully executed stone-cladding outside and tile and painted plasterwork inside) but it is well-proportioned and artfully situated right on the banks of the pretty Seyhan River, which strikes through the heart of the city. From the outside, the mosque looks very much like the famous Blue or Sultan Ahmet Mosque in İstanbul, with six towering minarets just like its early 17th century precursor in the distant metropolis, whilst the interior is reminiscent of Ottoman architect Sinan's masterpiece, the Selimiye Camii, in even more distant Edirne. Seen against a typically dramatic Çukorova afternoon sky, with mountains of appropriately cotton-white cumulus clouds enveloping a vast blue sky, it is a breathtaking sight.

The Seyhan River, along with the Ceyhan a little further to the east, brought down the silt from the Toros which has made the Çukurova so fertile. It is spanned by an ancient bridge best viewed from the riverbank just east of the Sabancı Camii, the so-called Taşköprü (stone bridge). Possibly first constructed in the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian in the second century with some 21 arches, it has been rebuilt many times over the ages, notably during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian and several times in the Ottoman era. The number of arches has been reduced to 14 over time, but it is still an impressive sight, especially when there is no wind and the calm surface of the sluggish river mirrors the bridge's graceful form.

The old bridge is visible proof that Adana's history stretches back at least to Roman times, but the Archaeology Museum, just a couple of hundred meters back towards town from the Sabancı Camii, shows that the origins of today's city can be traced back much further. The fine statue of the storm god Tarhunzas in a chariot astride a pair of bulls dates back to the neo-Hittite period (circa 1100-700 B.C.) though in legend Adana takes it name from the Danaoi, a group of settlers who fled Troy after was sacked by the Achaean Greeks back in 1100 B.C. Upstairs in the museum is a tiny but exquisite crystal statue of a Hittite god, some beautiful Hellenistic Greek and Roman era gold jewelry and an extensive coin collection. There's enough here to keep your attention for a couple of hours, and the museum garden, with its motley collection of Neo-Hittite and Roman statuary, is a pleasure to wander around.

To the Romans, who conquered the area in the first century B.C., the area around Adana was known not as the Çukurova, but as Cilicia. It became a part of the Byzantine Empire following the conversion of the Emperor Constantine to Christianity in the fourth century, but in the seventh century the Muslim Arabs took it. The Selçuk Turks, also Muslim, arrived in the 11th century, but from the 12th to the 14th centuries, it was the Cilician Kingdom of Armenia and Christian once again. In 1515 it became a part of the Ottoman world, and the most notable building in the center of the town, the Ulu Camii (Great Mosque), dates from this period. It's a lovely structure, faced with the contrasting bands of dark and light stone so common further south in Aleppo and further east in Gaziantep and Diyarbakır. Other buildings worth seeing are the 19th century Bebekli Catholic Church, the clock tower dating from the same era and the colorful Kazancılar Çarşısı (Bazaar of the Cauldron Makers).

Also in the city center is the Ethnographic Museum housed in an old Greek Orthodox church. It exhibits some fine kilims and a black goat hair tent, a reminder that the Yörük nomads of the Toros Mountains -- which are not far north of the city and are visible on clear days -- used to winter on the relatively warm flat Çukurova plain hereabouts.

One of Adana province's most famous sons, and certainly the best-known Turkish author outside his native land (along with Orhan Pamuk) is Yaşar Kemal. Before setting out for Adana and the surrounding Çukorova, try and read one of his stirring novels set in the 1920s. Dealing with the cruel lot of the oppressed peasantry migrating seasonally from their villages in the foothills of the Toros to the plain for the cotton-picking season, Kemal's novels are part Homeric epic, part social commentary.

Head east from Adana, and there are the Cilician Armenian castles of first Yılan Kalesi and then Toprakkale, both within an hour's drive. North of Osmaniye, in the pleasantly wooded foothills of the Toros, are the substantial remnants of the classical-era Hierapolis Castabella. A little further north lies the remarkable Neo-Hittite site of Karatepe, with its wonderful rock-relief carvings and fine views over the Aslantaş Dam. There are plenty of pleasant picnic spots on the shores of the Seyhan Dam directly north of Adana, and to the northeast are the remains of the castle of the Cilician Armenian capital at Kozan. Along with Karatepe, though, the most worthwhile day's outing is to Anavarza, which has extensive and substantial ruins largely from the late-Roman and Byzantine periods.

It wouldn't do to leave Adana without sampling one its famous kebabs, best washed down with another local speciality, şalgam, a bitter red juice derived from turnips and carrots, which are fermented and then spiced with chili before serving. Şalgam, like the city of Adana itself, is an acquired taste, but one well worth a try.

[TRAVEL TIPS]

HOW TO GET HERE Daily flights link Adana with İstanbul and Ankara. There are less fr:equent departures from Antalya. Inter-city coaches travel to the city at reasonable rates from virtually every town and city across Turkey.

WHERE TO STAY: Expensive: Seyhan Hotel Tel 0322/457 5818, ww.otelseyhan.com. Right by the Archaeology Museum and Sabancı Mosque; great buffet breakfast and views across to the river. Budget: Mercan Tel 0322/351 2603 www.otelmercan.com. Excellent value and spotless city-center hotel.

WHERE TO EAT: Yüzevler Tel 0322/454 7513 Ziyapaşa Bulvarı. The place where locals head for their Adana kebab fix.

GUIDES AND BOOKS: Blue, Lonely Planet and Rough Guides to Turkey; The Wind from the Plain, Undying Grass and Iron Earth, Copper Sky trilogy by Yaşar Kemal.