Hard though it is to believe it, one of the least explored parts of Turkey is Trakya (Thrace), the tiny triangle of the country that lies geographically in Europe.
The reason is fairly obvious. These days most tourists arrive in the country by plane and for them Trakya is nothing more than a barely-glimpsed pocket of land-mass before they glide into İstanbul. There was a time in the 1970s and ‘80s when a lot of people still arrived here by train, bus or car but the cheap air-fare revolution put paid to the train passengers while the wars over the ex-Yugoslavia saw off those who preferred to travel by road. Even when people do still arrive by car they usually have their sights so firmly set on the prize of İstanbul that everything before it goes unappreciated. Today it requires quite an effort to persuade visitors to redirect their eyes to the west of İstanbul instead of to the east.
The sole exception to that rule is Edirne, the lovely old town ringed with water meadows that was, as Adrianople, the second capital of the Ottoman Empire before it was moved to Constantinople (İstanbul). Edirne has considerable pulling power, not just because of its history but also because it sits right on the borders between Turkey and Greece, and Turkey and Bulgaria.
With time on your hands you might also want to consider visiting Enez, Kırklareli, Kıyıköy, Lüleburgaz, Tekirdağ and Vize, all of which offer enough to see to make a pleasant day’s outing. Wine buffs might like to explore the grape-growing area around Şarköy. There are beach resorts in Trakya too, both on the Black Sea coast and on the Sea of Marmara, but if you’re heading for the Aegean or Mediterranean it’s probably better to wait for their sands before cracking open the sun-tan lotion.
