Tekirdað, on the southern shore of Thrace (Trakya) is one of those unlucky places fated always to be on the way to somewhere else rather than a destination in its own right. People pour through it by the busload on their way to and from the Ýpsala border with Greece, or en route to and from Çanakkale, but usually the most they do in Tekirdað is hop out of the bus and into one of the many köfte places conveniently clumped together across the road from the harbor. This is a great shame because this is a town which is getting nicer by the year and which boasts a couple of museums that more than justify an hour or so of anybody´s time.

But let´s just say you do decide to make Tekirdað your objective, then the short walk from the otogar (bus station) to the town center will take you past the crumbling shells of once fine wooden mansions left over from the days when this was a place called Rodosto before depositing you at a busy traffic intersection dominated by a statue of Tekirdaðlý Hüseyin Pehlivan (1908-82). Hüseyin was a champion who excelled at that most Thracian of sports, oil wrestling. From the age of 14 it was already obvious that he was a champion in the making, and he went on to become a regular victor in the bouts that take place every summer at Kýrkpýnar in Edirne, in the northwestern corner of Thrace.

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