From Kaleiçi to Karaağaç, Towards the Meriç

Begin the day at the Macedonian Tower on the northern edge of Kaleiçi. The tower was one of the corner towers of the walls that enclosed Hadrianopolis, founded by the Roman emperor Hadrian, and it is the only structure from those walls to survive. The Culture Portal lists it as the Edirne Castle Macedonian Clock Tower; in the city it is also known as the Old Clock Tower. Sources date its construction to the reign of Hadrian, in the second century AD. Walk around the tower first, because the grounds have been laid out as an archaeological park. Excavations here uncovered Roman pottery kilns and mudbrick buildings thought to have served as granaries. The latest excavations also revealed the outbuildings of a chapel dated to the tenth century and a pottery kiln from the Byzantine period. Look in the grounds for the remains of an Ottoman ice house dated 1908 and the foundations of late Ottoman houses as well. As you look at the tower, notice the stone and brick masonry in the lower part of the wall, which shows that the building was repaired in different ages. In 1867 the governor of Edirne, Hacı İzzet Paşa, had wooden storeys added on top of the tower and a clock installed. After that the tower was known for many years as the Clock Tower or the People's Clock. The upper section, badly damaged in the earthquake of 1953, was later pulled down, which is why the silhouette you see today has no clock. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism took the tower into restoration at the end of 2021, and after long works it opened in the summer of 2026 as the Macedonian Tower Museum. Inside you can take the lift to the upper part of the tower and then explore the floors on the way down. The display includes ceramics, glassware, oil lamps, coins and everyday objects from the Roman, Eastern Roman, Ottoman and Republican periods. The most striking piece in the collection is a sculpted head depicting Odysseus, found during the Kaleiçi excavations in 1977. A fire brigade bugle recalls the years when the tower served as a fire watchtower. The viewing terrace at the top lets you frame the rooftops of Kaleiçi and the minarets of the Selimiye in a single shot. For photographs move to the southern side of the terrace, from where you can trace the line of the Karaağaç road you are about to walk. Check the museum's current opening hours and admission conditions with official sources before you go. When you leave the tower, walk a few steps south towards the edge of Kaleiçi. Historical sources say that the Ali Paşa Bazaar began outside the Tower Gate, so the next stop lies right in front of you.

Source: Kültür Portalı, Edirne Kalesi Makedonya Saat Kulesi; DHA, Makedonya Kulesi müze olarak açıldı; GZT, Makedonya Kule Müzesi.

Enter the Ali Paşa Bazaar from the end on the tower's side, through the entrance once called the Tower Gate. Here you will use the bazaar not as a shopping stop but as a passage walked between Kaleiçi and the newer town. According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, the bazaar has the Tower Gate and the Fish House Gate at its two ends, with four more gates in between that open onto side streets. As you walk the long corridor, count these side gates and glance outside through each of them. The encyclopedia notes that the Tower Gate and the side gates do not sit exactly on the axis but within skewed spaces. This irregularity shows that the bazaar was fitted into the street pattern of its time, and it is regarded as a typical trace of early Ottoman town planning. According to old sources the gate facing west was aligned with the middle gate of the citadel; in other words, the bazaar stitched the walled town to the world of trade outside it. Evliya Çelebi wrote of the paved streets of Kaleiçi that crossed at right angles like a chessboard. Step out through one of the side gates and see for yourself how much of this grid can still be read today. Kaleiçi was once known for its two-storey timber houses set in gardens; after fires and earthquakes much of that fabric changed. Even so, you can look out in the narrow streets for facades that keep the old scale. Back in the bazaar, carry on walking as far as the square space in the middle. Here there is a prayer square carried on four piers, which the encyclopedia explains as a result of the bazaar being built on a straight line. Stop at this point and look both ways along the corridor, because the rhythm of the vault divided by arches is best seen from here. On your way out, look again at the coloured interlocking stones of the arches over the main gates and at their cut-stone frames. The vaulted and spotless bazaar described by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who wrote letters from Edirne in the early eighteenth century, is thought to be this very building. The bazaar lost its brilliance in the nineteenth century, underwent a major repair in 1947 and came back to life after the sixties. It is still busy inside today, so rather than stopping in the middle of the corridor, wait at the side away from the shop fronts. If you have come by bicycle, walk it through the bazaar. If the crowd is dense, finish the bazaar in one end-to-end crossing and choose the side streets for lingering. When you come out at the Fish House Gate end, turn south towards Karaağaç. From here the road follows the southern edge of Kaleiçi down to the bank of the Tunca.

Source: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Ali Paşa Çarşısı; Wikipedia, Kaleiçi.

After the bazaar, go out to the Karaağaç road and walk south. The road first crosses the Tunca River on the Tunca Bridge, a ten-arched structure built at the beginning of the seventeenth century that carries a small tower at its centre. Shortly after crossing the Tunca you reach the head of the Meriç Bridge. The two rivers meet just south of these bridges, so within a few hundred steps you cross Edirne's two great waters one after the other. Work on the Meriç Bridge began in 1842 under Sultan Abdülmecid, and according to the Culture Portal it was completed in 1847. Try first to see the bridge from the bank, side on; only from there can the twelve pointed arches rising on thirteen piers be read as a whole. The middle of the bridge is high and its two ends are low; this profile, which the sources describe as sloping towards the sides, stands out clearly from the bank. Look at the relief openings between the piers, which were made to reduce the load of the water on the bridge during floods. Then climb onto the bridge and walk to the marble pavilion in the middle. Inside the pavilion is the inscription that records the building of the bridge. Murals with views of Edirne are known to decorate the inside of the dome, and an iron lightning rod with a sun motif once stood on top of it. Stop at the pavilion and turn north, where the minarets of the Selimiye rise above the water and the trees. On both sides of the bridge, quays of cut stone were built for ships, boats and skiffs to moor. These quays are a reminder of the river trade that, before the bridge, ran along the Meriç into the interior of the Balkans. The Meriç rises in Bulgaria, enters Turkey at Edirne and forms part of the border with Greece. The recreation areas stretching along the bank are open to the river and offer pleasant spots to sit and rest. The Edirne brochure of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism mentions that you can take a trip on the Meriç in the traditional Kancabaş boats painted in Edirne red. The same brochure recommends watching the sunset by the Meriç in the early evening, and this stop is made for exactly that. When the sun goes down in the west over Karaağaç, the reflection of the arches in the water is at its finest. The bridge is narrow and carries traffic, so keep to the parapet side while taking photographs. If you want to shoot from the bank, the flat ground at the western end of the bridge lets you capture the row of arches as a whole. When you cross the bridge and step down onto the far bank, you have set foot in Karaağaç. From here the road carries on in a straight line towards the old station building.

Source: Kültür Portalı, Mecidiye Köprüsü; Kültür Portalı, Meriç ve Tunca Nehirleri; KTB, Edirne broşürü.

After the Meriç the road runs in a straight line into Karaağaç and brings you out in front of the old station building. Get to know the quarter itself first, because the meaning of this stop lies in its story. Karaağaç hardly appears in sources before the sixteenth century; thanks to its elevated position surrounded by forests and rivers, it gradually became a cool summer retreat for the people of Edirne. When the railway station was built here in the nineteenth century the quarter grew quickly, and sericulture and cocoon factories developed among the mulberry groves. At the beginning of the twentieth century Karaağaç, with its cinemas and show halls, was nicknamed Little Paris. Now move across to the facade of the station building. The building was designed in the neoclassical style by Architect Kemaleddin, taking Sirkeci Station as its model. Construction of the three-storey, rectangular structure, some eighty metres long, was largely finished in 1914. Because the route changed during the First World War, the station could not open and began to receive trains only in 1930. Since part of the line lay on the other side of the border, for many years trains from Istanbul had to pass through the territory of a neighbouring country to get here. When Edirne's new station opened in 1971, the Karaağaç station closed. The building was then handed over to Trakya University, restored true to its original form and used for many years as the rectorate. Today the same building houses the university's Faculty of Fine Arts, so focus on its facade and its grounds rather than its interior. The Lausanne Monument in the grounds was built in memory of the Treaty of Lausanne signed in 1923 and opened in 1998. Move to the middle of the square to see the monument from the front. Three columns stand on three concrete consoles rising from the ground at an angle of forty-five degrees. The tallest column stands for Anatolia, the second for Thrace, and the short column between them for Karaağaç. A concrete ring tying the columns together expresses unity, and in front of the ring stands the statue of a young woman holding a dove in one hand and a document in the other. The semicircular pool at the foot of the monument represents the seas that surround Turkey on three sides. When the area around the monument was turned into a park, a sapling was planted for every year of the Republic. Then go into the Lausanne Museum in the station's auxiliary building. The two-room museum displays documents and photographs relating to the treaty, personal belongings of İsmet İnönü, head of the Turkish delegation, and cartoons about him. In the library in the entrance corridor you can also see books written about the treaty. Check the museum's current opening days with official sources before you go. If you arrive in the early evening, the white columns of the monument catch the light of the setting sun beautifully, so save your photographs for those hours. To return to the centre you can walk back the same way or use the city's public transport.

Source: Kültür Portalı, Lozan Anıtı ve Müzesi; Wikipedia, Lozan Anıtı; Wikipedia, Karaağaç Tren İstasyonu.