Making a day of it in Mersin

Mersin has two specific attractions, both of them within spitting distance of each other on the western side of town. The first is a fine house in a lovely walled garden where Atatürk and his wife were guests on a number of different occasions. The ground floor is devoted to a predictable collection of photographs and memorabilia of the great man, rendered almost impossible to appreciate by sensor-activated lighting that switches itself on and off in frenzied fashion. Upstairs, however, is rather calmer and gives you a chance to appreciate what most of Mersin's finer interiors would have looked like in the first half of the 20th century, with a series of bed and living rooms opening off a central sitting/dining area, an arrangement that worked wonderfully in the days before the noisy advent of television.

Across a small park the town's archeological museum showcases finds from nearby Viranşehir, and from Elaiussa Sebeste at Ayaş near Kızkalesi. The single most striking statue is a top-heavy second or third-century one of Dionysius with Pan and one of the god's pet panthers, but there's also a wonderful horde of sixth-century Byzantine gold found at Küstüllü Köyü, near Erdemli. You'll probably have to ask to have the upstairs gallery unlocked for you, but it's worth it to see some fine examples of local amulets and a spectacular two-piece outfit in maroon velvet embroidered with gold thread that would have been worn by a local woman (although not, one must hope, in the high humidity of summer).

There's not a great deal left of old Mersin, although if you wander down 118 Cadde opposite the train station you'll pass some lovely old stone houses whose wrought-iron balconies and wooden shutters looks so provincial French that you're hardly surprised to turn a corner and come across a huge Latin Catholic church that's still in use today. Here, too, the old Akdeniz Oteli is currently being restored. Should it resume service as a hotel, it will make a welcome addition to a range of places to stay locally that is adequate, if hardly exciting.

Mersin is a strangely subtropical kind of place where palm trees give even the tallest concrete buildings a run for their money, and hibiscus plants and banana trees put down roots in the most unlikely places. A shame, then, that someone in authority thought it would be a bit of fun to “plant” plastic palm trees along one of the main roads. These are now falling apart faster than the real palms can shed their fronds, and there are few things sadder than a plastic palm tree that's past its sell-by date.

The authorities may have come unstuck with the plastic palms but they've done a great deal better with the waterfront, which has been completely made over and is now a wonderful place to while away a few spare hours. At one end of town the impressive new conference center comes accompanied by fountains, while at the other end little wooden kiosks dot Atatürk Parkı. But then comes the disappointment. A marvelous collection of marble sculptures has been positioned here, including an outsize bicycle that no young man appears able to resist mounting. But already every single one of these sculptures is covered in tags. CCTV? Frightening policemen with big sticks? I jest, but seriously, what is to be done to stop certain members of the public ruining what would otherwise provide pleasure for so many?

The original local settlement at Yumuktepe appears to date back to Neolithic times, but there was also a major development east of the center in what is now the suburb of Mezitli. The journey out to Mezitli is not one to raise the spirits since the coast road skims an unbroken wall of high-rise apartment blocks and shopping complexes. Finally, the bus turns left and heads down towards the sea and the site now called Viranşehir (“Ruined City”), originally the port city of Soli, which appears to have been settled by colonists from Rhodes c. 700 B.C. Once a large and important place, it became the capital of a Persian province, before succumbing first to the Athenians, then to Alexander the Great and finally to the Commagene King Antiochus III. Then in 91 B.C. its population was driven out and resettled in eastern Anatolia.

Soli recovered its former importance with the arrival of the Roman Gen. Pompey, who used it as a base for suppressing the pirates who preyed on local shipping. Renamed Pompeiopolis, it acquired new walls, new roads and all sorts of important civic buildings, and when the Persians came calling again in 260, the local population was strong enough to send them packing. But then nature took its toll. In 527 Pompeiopolis was flattened by an earthquake from which it was never able to recover. Today there's almost nothing left to suggest how important it once was -- just a single line of columns that once marched alongside the main road leading from the northern gate to the harbor. Of the 41 columns still standing, 33 retain their capitals; the most southerly also retain brackets on which would have stood statues of the emperors and important local dignitaries.

It's a great disappointment to find the columns closed off behind a wire fence, although without it presumably the taggers would have done their worst here, too. Still, it's worth walking right down to the sea. Here the Taşkıran Mezitli Çay Bahçesi stands right over the site of the old warehouses and other buildings that would once have served a harbor created during the reigns of the Emperors Hadrian (r. 117-38) and Antoninus Pius (r. 138-61). Peer over the railings and you'll see a few slabs of stone that must once have formed part of the harbor wall. It's a wonderful place to gaze out to sea, and ponder the twists of historic fortune.

Back in the center you can give your taste buds a cheap treat by dining out on tantuni, tiny pieces of lamb or chicken stir-fried with tomato and parsley and then wrapped in paper-thin lavaş bread or sandwiched in half a normal loaf. Wash it down with the sour local tipple şalgam -- normally turnip juice but sometimes fermented carrot instead. Afterwards you'll need a slice of cezerye, a carrot-flavored jelly studded with half walnuts, or a piece of kerebiç, a local biscuit stuffed with walnuts and pistachios, to take the edge off the bitterness.

WHERE TO STAY

Hotel Yalçın Tel.: (324) 239 01 53

Mersin Oteli Tel.: (324) 238 10 40

Nobel Oteli Tel.: (324) 237 22 10

HOW TO GET THERE

You can fly to Adana and then take a bus to Mersin, although there are plentiful bus services direct to Mersin from all over the country. Buses leave for Viranşehir from near the Atatürk Evi -- catch the same bus back or risk a tedious journey round the suburbs.

Mersin Kızkalesi

Viranşehir

 Yumuktepe excavations

Tantuni