Edirne

Book excerpt: Once known as Adrianople and Hadrianopolis, and today as Edirne, this border town of the European part of Turkey is an astonishingly inconspicuous place. If the visitors come to see it, it is mainly for one of two reasons. The huge draw for the people who love historical architecture is the magnificent Selimiye Mosque Complex, built by the most famous Ottoman architect, Sinan, and proudly listed by the UNESCO as the world heritage site. The unusual location of Edirne, at the confluence of three rivers, has always been a mixture of blessings and disastrous floods, and was even recorded in the Greek mythology, in the story of matricidal Orestes. The traces of the indigenous inhabitants of the area, the Thracians, that gave the region its name, are scattered near Edirne. These mysterious dolmens, so frequently associated with Western Europe only, still guard many secrets of the past of Thrace. While this book is the tale of the city and its monuments, it is foremost the history of its inhabitants. One of the ambitions of the author was to record beautifully multicultural and multi-ethnic past, still reflected in Edirne's architecture. Unfortunately, the intricate mosaic of various religions and nationalities is no more, its pieces scattered by the wars, conflicts, and disasters.