Reading list | The Mediterranean

We divide the Mediterranean coast, littered with archaeological sights, into two halves. To the west the Taurus mountains dramatise the Turquoise coast. To the east of Antalya the plains stretch towards less visited Tarsus and Antakya. In the west, the giant spine of the Taurus Mountains divides Turkey's Mediterranean coast from the high plateau of the Anatolian interior and falls steeply to the shore. To the east, as Jacqueline de Gier writes in Cornucopia 23, 'the southern crook of the Turkish coast, from Antalya to Mersin, is perhaps not as easy to enjoy as the bays and harbours of the Turquoise Coast to the west. Dominated by the Taurus Mountains, its beauty is in its austerity. Its wild, often deserted unpredictability no doubt explains why it was a favourite hide-out for pirates, priestesses, oracles, nuns and heretics. It lured the most eccentric men and women, as in an odd way it still does...'