Edirne is one of the most important living heritages of the great Ottoman Empire. When you are in Edirne you will easily experience this fact simply wandering around streets of the old town.
If you can walk through Edirne with awareness and feeling, you can hear the sounds of Fatih’s soldiers who brought the cannons they fired here to the gates of Istanbul.
You can see the admirable moral qualities of Ottoman women in the mansions, and you can feel Lady Montagu’s words in the letters she wrote to her country, saying “I lived a moment of heaven there.” This same feeling can also enable you yo experience the last days of the Ottoman Empire amid the ruins of the New Palace.
In Edirne, the entire chain of commercial structures in the Ottoman Empire reveals itself through Rüstem Pasha’s caravanserai, Çelebi Mehmed’s covered bazaar (bedesten), Sultan Murad III’s arasta (market), and Semiz Ali Pasha’s bazaars.
Then again when you visit the HIDIRLI Fortification, you can picture in your creative mind the legendary story of Şükru Pasha, the Ottoman commander who was asked to “only defend Edirne for fifteen days” during the Bulgarian siege but successfully defended the city for five and a half months under unbelievably desperate cisrcumstances. The Kıyık and Hıdırlık fortifications still stand as witnesses to this heroism and are open to visitors.
With bridges such as Meriç (over River Maritsa), Ekmekçioğlu, Saraçhane, Kanuni, Fatih, Yıldırım, Bayezid, and Mihail Gazi, this city has served for centuries as a great bridge connecting Anatolia to Europe.
From the Kırkpınar wrestling festival to its famous sweets, from its almond paste to its mirrored brooms, and from its liver to its meatballs, Edirne, the Ottoman Masterpiece, offers much to explore and see in this travel guide.
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