Hard though it is to believe, one of the least explored parts of Turkey is actually Trakya (Thrace), the tiny triangle of the country that lies geographically in Europe. The reason for this is fairly obvious.

These days most tourists arrive in the country by plane, and for them Trakya is nothing more than a barely glimpsed pocket of land-mass before they glide into Ýstanbul. There was a time in the 1970s and ´80s when a lot of people still arrived here by train, bus or car, but the cheap airfare revolution put an end to the train passengers, while the wars in former Yugoslavia saw off those who preferred to travel by road. Even when people do still arrive by car, they usually have their sights so firmly set on the prize of Ýstanbul that everything before it goes unappreciated. Today it requires quite an effort to persuade visitors to redirect their eyes to the west of Ýstanbul instead of to the east.

The sole exception to that rule is Edirne, the lovely old town ringed with water meadows that was, as Adrianople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire before it was moved to Constantinople (Ýstanbul). Edirne has considerable pulling power, not just because of its history but also because it sits right on the borders between Turkey and Greece, and Turkey and Bulgaria. But what of the other less familiar corners of Trakya? Don´t they deserve the occasional visitor, too?

More: http://www.sundayszaman.com/sunday/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=172189&bolum=117

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Indeed, Trakya is one of the area´s high on my list for my next longer visit to Turkey. Still, the travel books don´t give too much information about what to see / do or where to go/stay in this part of the country. Anyone who has?

Interesting column Trudy, i hoping to go to Istanbul later in the year, definitely a place i would like to visit. Thank you