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PART 11: The Tail End Beyond Amasra
Beyond Amasra, the Black Sea gets prosaic. The area of Zonguldak is Turkey's
principal coalmining region. The city itself is a surprisingly neat and
attractive one, but the only noteworthy feature of the environs is the mines
which extend for hundreds of miles into the bowels of the earth. Underneath,
thousands of coal-blackened miners work in a night marish setting directly
borrowed from 19th century Newcastle. Tours down the mine shafts into the
underground tunnels may be arranged through the State Coal Company (TKI) offices
in Zonguldak.
For those with an even greater interest in the realm of darkness, the region
also offers some of the most spectacular natural caves in Turkey. The Cumayanı
Cave, near Çatalağzı town, is considered a speleologist's delight. Its
ten-kilometer length can be explored by inflatable raft. More accessible for the
layman is the Gökgöl Cave, near Üzülmez Village, which has remarkable elephant-tusx
stalactites.
Eregli is the Heracleia Pontica of antiquity, where the philosopher Heracleides
first postulated that the earth revolved around its axis in 24 hours. The name
of the town refers to an episode in the Argonaut legend where Heracles cries in
anguish over his friend Hylas who has been abducted by lovesick nymphs. So
Virgil in the Sixth Georgic:
"His adjungit Hylan nautae quo fonte relictum
Clamassent. ut litus HYLA, HYLA, omne sonare t."
Ereğli now boasts the largest steelworks of the whole near east.
Further west, at Akçakoca start the endless sandy beaches that attract
weekenders and property speculators from
Istanbul. There are a few scattered
points of interest, but the poetry of the Black Sea is no longer there. The
traveler's imagination recoils, and hastens back to the landscape of Trabzon for
another excursion into the remote marvels of the Pontic coast.
PART 1:
Hazelnut Country
PART 2:
Stately Houses
PART 3:
Texas in Turkey
PART 4:
Birds, Castles, Lost Churches
PART 5:
Cherrytown
PART 6:
Şebinkarahisar
PART 7:
Ordu to Unye
PART 8:
The Flatlands
PART 9:
A Historic Metropolis
PART 10:
Paphlagonia
PART 11:
The Tail End |
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