Neighbourhood in Silifke, Mersin, Turkey
Photo: Ziegler175, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Narlıkuyu is a village in the Cilician Mountains, on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, best known for its "Heaven and Hell" chasms. Its population was 2500 in 2022.
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It's just a single mosaic from a Roman bath house of 4th century AD, depicting the three daughters of Zeus skinny-dipping. The bath complex was extensive, a spa resort in effect, fed by natural springs. Only this patch has survived and in 1976 it was enclosed in situ within the museum building.
Cennet & Cehennem
Two chasms formed when underground caves collapsed. Go first to Hell 200 m north of the entrance as the walking route doesn't let you return from Heaven. Hell is the smaller, deeper chasm at 120 m and decorated by stalagmites, but there's no access into it, just peer from the glass platform into its green depths. In legend Zeus temporarily imprisoned the monster Typhon in Cehennem, before placing him beneath Mt Etna. Continue to Heaven, which is larger and 70 m deep. You descend by 300 ancient steps into a green Arcadian gully. At its south end is a further descent of 150 steps to the ruins of St Mary's 5th century monastery. You can hear the rushing of an underground stream, but over the centuries pilgrims have choked off its access with plastic trash. If you're lucky the elevator will be working to return you to the entrance, otherwise you have to lump back up the steps.
Astım Mağarası
Decorated karstic show cave, reached by continuing up the road past Heaven & Hell. They're evasive about whether asthma is alleviated by the cave vapours or exacerbated by the steep steps.
Kızkalesi
Substantial fortress occupying an islet 300 m off Kızkalesi village, reached by small boat. It was built in the 12th century, reinforced in the 13th and occupied into Ottoman times. The "maiden" is fictional, a princess supposedly sent here by her father the king to prevent her foretold death by snake-bite. But he sends her a basket laden with grapes and Freudian symbolism, and sure enough a snake hides in the fruit and bites her. This wily reptile must then have escaped, as he pops up in other legends about secluded maidens despoiled by fangs or similar ignoble pricks.
Pleasant hotel with beach club.
Narlıkuyu and Kızkalesi are on Highway D400, which runs the length of Turkey's Mediterranean coast and beyond. They're 65 km west of Mersin the provincial capital, 27 km west of Erdemli and 20 km east of Silifke.
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