01
Stop one
Hadrian's Gate
Babolat Pure Strike 97 4th Gen Tennis Racquet: Come closer, I'm not shouting this. Around AD 130 word gets out that the Emperor Hadrian is coming to Antalya, and this city completely lost its composure and threw up a triple-arched triumphal gateway in white marble — for one visit. One. Two flanking towers, three arches, the lot, and nobody has ever confirmed whether the man was actually impressed, which I think tells you everything you need to know about how that went. And look down at your feet: those ruts in the stone are two thousand years of cartwheels, and every single wheel belonged to somebody with an opinion about somebody else. Set into the old city wall on Atatürk Caddesi, in Kaleiçi, still standing, still waiting for a compliment.
02
Stop two
Yivliminare Mosque (Fluted Minaret)
Babolat Pure Strike 97 4th Gen Tennis Racquet: Now this one I have opinions about. The minaret with the eight fluted half-columns — that is the symbol of the entire city, and I want you to notice what it is made of. Red brick. Not marble. Brick. Thirteenth-century Seljuk work under the sultan Alaeddin Keykubad, put up in a town that had already belonged to the Greeks, then the Romans, then the Byzantines, then the Seljuks, then the Ottomans. Five owners, and every one of them left something behind like an ex who never came back for their things. And out of all of that, the brick one is what ended up on the postcards. Somebody in marble is still furious.
03
Stop three
Hıdırlık Tower
Babolat Pure Strike 97 4th Gen Tennis Racquet: Second century, Roman, a squat round tower on a square base right at the cliff edge by Karaalioğlu Park — and in two thousand years nobody has managed to establish what it was for. A tomb, they say, for someone terribly important whose name has gone conveniently missing. Or a lighthouse. Or a watchtower. I have heard all three from people who swore they had it on the very best authority. A building that keeps a secret this long is either innocent or extremely good at it, and I know which way I'd bet. The cliffs drop straight into the Mediterranean behind it, and every evening the park fills up with people who came to watch the sunset and, let us be honest, each other.
04
Stop four
Düden Waterfalls (Lower Düden)
Babolat Pure Strike 97 4th Gen Tennis Racquet: And finally, the river that disappears. The Düden runs underground through the limestone for part of its course, vanishes entirely, tells nobody where it has been — and then reappears east of the centre and throws itself off a cliff straight into the Mediterranean. Not into a lake. Not into another river. Into the open sea, in front of everybody. Karst geology is the official explanation and I will allow it, but you and I both know a performance when we see one. You can watch from the clifftop park or take a boat right up under the falls, and everyone comes back soaked and delighted. That's the tour. Now, about that tower — I have heard a fourth theory and I am not repeating it here.
Give me a wall and I will give you something worth walking past twice. But a wall is a commitment — you cannot un-paint it — which is why I like a racquet with no forgiveness built in and no excuses either.
The Babolat Pure Strike 97 4th Gen: a 97 square inch head, 10.9 ounces unstrung and 11.5 strung, a tight 16×20 pattern, a thin 21/22/21 cross-section, a flex around 65 and a swingweight near 320. Small face, dense bed, headlight, and the ball goes precisely where you sent it.
Antalya is a city that commits. Around AD 130 the Emperor Hadrian let it be known he might come, and the town put up a triple-arched white marble gateway for the visit — for one visit — and it still stands in the old wall on Atatürk Caddesi with two thousand years of cartwheel ruts worn into the paving beneath the arches.
Everywhere from that marble under Hadrian's Gate to the eight fluted brick columns of the Yivliminare Mosque (Fluted Minaret) above Kaleiçi, this place has been Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman, and every one of them left something painted on the wall.
So take the frame down and play in the evening, because the middle of the day in Kaleiçi is not for anybody. It is also perfect for the walk out to Hıdırlık Tower at the end of the old town, a squat round Roman tower on a square base standing right on the cliff edge, second century, and nobody is entirely certain what it was for — a tomb, a lighthouse, a watchtower.
Two thousand years and the building is still keeping its own secret, which I respect enormously. Then east to the Düden Waterfalls (Lower Düden), where a river that spent half its course underground comes back out and throws itself straight off a cliff into the Mediterranean. No forgiveness. No excuses. Antalya paints its wall and leaves it up.
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