Four stops before the checkout

Tunceli, Turkey

Stop one

The confluence of the Munzur and Pülümür rivers in central Tunceli

Dunlop CX Performance Tennis Bag (3 Racquet): Two waters meeting, and me a thousand miles from salt. Tunceli sits on the Munzur at about 914 metres in the mountains of Eastern Anatolia, and the Munzur is among the cleanest rivers in Turkey, fed by springs in its own range — I have drunk far worse at sea and worse again in port. It joins the Pülümür stream right in the centre of the town. The settlement was called Kalan, or Mamekiye, under the Ottomans; the province of Dersim was renamed Tunceli in 1935 and Kalan was renamed with it, becoming the provincial administrative centre, a status confirmed by Law No. 4993 of 30 December 1946. The riverside tea gardens are where the town gathers.

Stop two

Dersim Taşköprü (Dersim Stone Bridge)

Dunlop CX Performance Tennis Bag (3 Racquet): A stone bridge, and near enough the only built landmark this town has to its own name — and I'll tell you why. Tunceli has almost no surviving pre-twentieth-century architecture, because it was founded late as a provincial capital; there is no old waterfront here to walk down. So the bridge carries the whole weight of it. It takes the traffic over the Munzur in the centre of the city and it is the standard photograph of the place, turning up beside the Dersim Museum in any description of Tunceli. A crossing pressed into service as a monument. I have known ports the same way — one jetty, and it becomes the town's whole face.

Stop three

Munzur Valley National Park

Dunlop CX Performance Tennis Bag (3 Racquet): Established 21 December 1971, the largest and most biodiverse national park in Turkey — and the centrepiece is a thing I would cross an ocean to see. The Munzur Gözeleri: springs coming up out of the ground across roughly 300 metres and uniting into the Munzur river. A river being born in a stretch you could walk in five minutes. Brown bear in there, wolf, wild boar, deer, lynx, golden eagle, and it is known for its wild fritillaries. It lies immediately north-west of the town centre, and it is the whole reason this province is spoken of for its landscape. Fresh water, running fast. Best cargo there is.

Stop four

Tunceli Museum (Dersim Museum)

Dunlop CX Performance Tennis Bag (3 Racquet): New timber, this one — opened towards the end of 2020, in the centre of Tunceli. The displays run the region from prehistoric times to the modern era, and there is a library of around ten thousand volumes with a dedicated section on Alevi belief and ritual, this province being one of the principal centres of Alevism in Turkey. And here is the part for an old man: the ancient Greek writers called this region Daranis and Derksene. Names set down by people who wrote them, then sailed off and were never heard of again, and the land kept the names and lost the men. It happens on every voyage.

The Tunceli, Turkey track

Dunlop CX Performance Tennis Bag (3 Racquet)

Written for this world alone.

Okay, stop scrolling, because this? This is giving main character.

The Dunlop CX Performance Tennis Bag (3 Racquet) is a molded 30 x 5 x 13 inch silhouette that holds its shape whether it's carrying three racquets or your entire personality — one structured main compartment for up to three frames, an internal zipped pocket for valuables, two exterior accessory pockets for the little stuff, and shoulder straps comfortable enough for an all-day shoot.

The molding is the story here: your frames ride protected, and the bag photographs clean from every single angle. No slouch, no sag. It understands angles better than most people I work with.

And the backdrop it deserves is Tunceli, and I need everyone to catch up on Tunceli. Two rivers — the Munzur, one of the cleanest rivers in all of Turkey, and the Pülümür — meet right in the middle of town, and the light on that confluence from the riverside tea gardens at golden hour? Unreal. No filter needed; the water IS the filter.

Pose the bag on the Dersim Stone Bridge — literally the photographic emblem of the city, for a reason — then take it up to Munzur Valley National Park, the largest national park in Turkey, where the entire river comes OUT OF THE GROUND at the Munzur Gözeleri springs. The river just… begins. Across 300 metres. Is the group getting this?

Hashtag source content, hashtag literally. Wrap at the Tunceli Museum for the culture-forward closer.

You'll be carrying this everywhere from those riverside tea gardens to a hard indoor court back home, and by the way — it's also perfect for a full Turkish breakfast on the riverbank, which takes three hours minimum and requires somewhere safe to put your phone, and guess which bag has an internal zipped pocket.

Three racquets in, valuables zipped, and every stop on the grid understands the assignment.

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Dunlop CX Performance Tennis Bag (3 Racquet)

Dunlop CX Performance Tennis Bag (3 Racquet)

Four stops before the checkout