Looking into the castle at the old mosque
The morning thunder clouds coming off the sea are overhead and hopefully will blow away as the day progresses. We are leaving Anamur on day 125, after two nights at the Hotel Luna Piena overlooking the sea, and heading to Mersin with a one night stopover on the way. Mersin is as far east as we will travel, keeping our distance from the Syrian Border. We will be spending two nights in Mersin with SERVAS hosts, then heading north to Kayseri.
Day 124, Tuesday, Octobrer 14.
One of the joys of the off season is the lack of other tourists, little traffic congestion, uninhabited stretches of beach and streets. That's the good news. The bad news is that this is also the time of year when locals take advantage of infrastructure construction and reconstruction of historic sites, leading to delays and closures of some sites. Today, with anticipation of visiting a historic castle....Wikipedia http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamure_Castle
"The castle was built by the rulers of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia on the foundations of a fourth-century Roman castle.[1]Designed to protect against pirates, it was repaired during the Byzantine era and during the Crusades. When Alaattin Keykubat I of Seljuk Turks captured the ruins of the castle in 1221, he built a larger castle using elements of the earlier fortifications. Later, it was controlled by the Karamanid dynasty (who ruled a Turkish state in Anatolia). Although the exact date is uncertain, according to an inscription by İbrahim II of Karaman in 1450, the castle was captured during Mahmut's reign (1300–1311). The castle was renamed as Mamure (prosperous) after repairs by Mahmut.[2] In 1469, the castle was annexed by the Ottoman Empire.[1] It was subsequently repaired in the 15th, 16th and 18th centuries and a part of the castle was used as a caravansarai."
We read in another brochure that Alaattin Keykubat I, was himself a pirate. So this castle originally built to protect from pirates ironically became a pirate stronghold for a period of time. There is a geocache here, and our Travel Bug Pirate's Parlay was excited to visit the castle and the cache. The Bad News: Unfortunately, when we arrived the castle was officially closed to tourists due to reconstruction. The Good News: A very nice Castle Keep who sensing our disappointment took us on a personalized tour of the grounds not under construction. He was knowledgeable, solicitous of our safety, and never left us alone for a second. We enjoyed our visit but alas were unable to search around for the geocache, because the location was in one of the towers being reconstructed.
We returned to the hotel in the early afternoon, and spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the lounge of the hotel enjoying the Internet. I was able to attach photos to the blog of several of our past Turkey visits. You might want to take a scroll on past posts on worrallwind.blogspot.com.
All is the Well with the Worrall Travel R's in Anamur, Turkey...Arrrrrr!
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