Participants during Orange Blossom Festival in the city of Adana, Turkey. Photos by Ahmed Idriss | The Peninsula
The Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism recently supported the annual festival of Adana Orange Blossom in the city of Adana, a large city located in the south of the country.
The festival is held every year to celebrate the blooming of orange blossoms in the region, indicating the arrival of the spring season in Turkey.
The festival is the most popular event in the city as it witnesses the attendance and participation of thousands of people in live dance performances and concerts.
The festival also attracts great interest from neighbouring cities and international tourists, who have started visiting the country at this time with the receding of the pandemic and lifting of relevant health restrictions in Turkey.
It is worth mentioning that the display of the festival is unique as everything was in orange colour. The shops displayed their items in orange, and the restaurants presented their food with orange dishes. This year, a group of people in their embellished clothes presented a musical show in the city’s streets as the audience swayed.
With a population of more than 2.2 million, Adana is the sixth-largest city in Turkey and the most important in terms of population after Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.
The name of the city originated in legends. It is said that Adana was founded by Adanos, son of Cronos. (God of weather, father of Zeus). Being in the heart of the Fertile Crescent, Adana has been an important city for many civilisations for centuries.
The city is famous for several restaurants serving Turkish food, the most famous of which are kebabs, especially Adana kebabs and shawarma, and traditional dishes such as Turkish tagines and delicious bread, along with local Turkish beverages.
The city is charming and picturesque and is on the course of the Seyhan River, one of the longest rivers in Turkey, with a length of 560 metres, which pours into the Mediterranean Sea.
Participants during Orange Blossom Festival in the city of Adana, Turkey.
Tourist attractions vary from religious, historical and cultural heritage. This includes the Great Mosque located inside the old town, surrounded by a high wall built in the Mamluk style. The Mamluk architecture was famous for its beauty and splendour, and the Ottoman inscriptions.
There are several bridges on both sides of the city, including the Stone Bridge, one of Turkey’s oldest bridges — on the Seyhan River dating back to the Roman civilisation. It is one of the city’s most important symbols and one of the oldest stone bridges in Turkey. The Romans built it of stones in the form of arches as they were the first to use stone for construction and use bridges. The Roman-inspired buildings are also enormous and prominent.
Furthermore, Varda Bridge is located in the Karasali district, and it is also called the Great Bridge. It was built between 1907 and 1912 by the Germans (length 172 metres and a height of 99 metres)
The construction of a bridge was associated with constructing the Ottoman-German project for a railway linking Istanbul to Baghdad to ease movement within the Ottoman empire. The Varda Bridge has appeared in many films, including the 2012 James Bond movie ‘Skyfall.’
The Adana Archeology Museum is one of the oldest archaeological museums in Turkey.
Founded in 1924, one year after the founding of the Turkish Republic, the museum is rich in many antiquities discovered in archaeological excavations in Adana and its neighbouring cities.
It houses artefacts dating back to prehistoric times and stone artefacts such as statues, inscriptions, coffins, flats, architectural pieces, pottery made of clay, various pots, cylinders, stamp seals, and coins. Other archaeological finds from the Hittites, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Romans and Byzantines are displayed in the museum.
The Great Clock Tower is one of the most important tourist attractions in Adana and the highest clock in all of Turkey, reaching about 32 metres in height. This tower is surrounded by a traditional market that includes dozens of gift shops and handicrafts, nuts shops, and sweets, especially baklava, lokum, and others.
Meanwhile, the stunning Kapikaya Valley, 40km from the city centre and about 200 metres deep and 20km long, is a hikers’ paradise.
The valley also appeals to slope climbers and photography enthusiasts.
