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From "The Telegraph Online Edition" 11/05/2009
Never dig a hole in Turkey. Within 30 seconds of the first spade breaking the earth, a team of archaeologists will have appeared from nowhere, taped off the area, and fined you for damaging a long-lost Bronze Age settlement or first-century Roman bathhouse. Just ask the poor guys trying to build Istanbul's much-needed metro, or the farmers of Göbekli Tepe in Eastern Turkey. Until the mid-Nineties, the latter were dragging their ploughs inches above the carved stones of a temple dating from 12,000BC. Turkey's like that - dig a little and you're bound to uncover hidden treasures.
This holds true for holidaymakers as much as archaeologists. With the eurozone so expensive, now is the perfect time to take a closer look at this beautiful, vast, endlessly fascinating country. Too vast and fascinating to serve up in one article, sadly - Eastern Turkey is a main course in itself. These are just a few hors d'oeuvres to whet your appetite. All are easy to reach independently but, if you prefer to travel with the security of a good tour operator, package prices have been provided.
Around Istanbul
For some reason, visitors tend not to strike out from Istanbul in the way that they do from, say, Marrakesh in Morocco. Shame, as there are plenty of worthwhile places within easy reach, such as the old Ottoman capitals of Bursa, on the Asian side of the Bosporus, and Edirne, two hours' drive west into Thrace, by the Greek border.
Edirne is famed in Turkey for its annual oil-wrestling championship, cigercisi (fried calf's liver), distinctly un-Islamic levels of alcohol consumption, and its historic mosques: Eski Cami (1418), Üç Serefeli (1447) and Selimiye Cami (1575).
You can't miss the mosques. Look up and there they are, dominating the skyline of this charmingly slow-paced town.
Most impressive is the newest, Selimiye, the masterpiece of Mimar Sinan, the great architect of the Ottoman glory years. He was 80 at the time, and the story goes he was fed up with smug Europeans telling him he'd never build a bigger unsupported dome than Istanbul's Aya Sofya (constructed by infidel Byzantines). He proved them wrong in Edirne, by about 10 inches. It's a sublime, wonderfully serene building and you can enjoy it without the crowds of visitors that mill around the newer and more famous Blue Mosque in Istanbul.
