Tekirdağ: Köfte, Wine and Rodosto on the Marmara

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1. What is Tekirdağ?
2. How do you get to Tekirdağ?
3. Where should you stay in Tekirdağ?
4. What type of climate does Tekirdağ have?
5. When is the best time to visit Tekirdağ?
6. What is the history of Tekirdağ?
7. What is Tekirdağ famous for?
8. What are the historical places of Tekirdağ?
9. What are the best things to do in Tekirdağ?
10. What are the best places to visit in Tekirdağ?
11. What is the traditional food of Tekirdağ?
12. What should you buy in Tekirdağ?
13. Frequently asked questions about Tekirdağ
14. What do the official records say about Tekirdağ?

What is Tekirdağ?

Tekirdağ is a province in Eastern Thrace, the European part of Türkiye, stretching along the northern shore of the Sea of Marmara west of Istanbul. Its capital, also called Tekirdağ, is a port town about 135 km west of Istanbul, built on a slope above a long bay. The 2002 inventory describes it as an important commercial port, with natural beaches stretching away on both sides and vineyards, edged with sunflowers, surrounding the town.

Inland the province is mostly rolling farmland: the inventory notes that it sits on the Thrace-Kocaeli peneplain, without high mountains, steep slopes or deep valleys, and that the land is broken up only in the south, by Tekir Dağı, Koru Dağı and the Ganos Mountains. Those southern hills drop steeply to the sea between Tekirdağ and Şarköy, and their slopes are Thrace’s best-known wine country.

For visitors, Tekirdağ is a stop on the road between Istanbul and Çanakkale or the Gallipoli Peninsula: a seafront promenade, a Mimar Sinan mosque, a small group of museums, and a famous plate of köfte. The coast west of the city, around Şarköy, Mürefte and Uçmakdere, is the place to spend longer.

Places to visit in Tekirdağ

Rüstem Paşa Mosque

Rüstem Paşa Mosque in Tekirdağ: Mimar Sinan’s 1553 mosque above the sea,…

Rákóczi Museum

Rákóczi Museum in Tekirdağ: the house where Francis II Rákóczi lived in…

Tekirdağ Archaeology and Ethnography Museum

Tekirdağ Archaeology and Ethnography Museum: finds from 4500 BC on, Roman and…

Şarköy

Şarköy in Tekirdağ: Mürefte and Hoşköy wineries, the Kutman Wine Museum, Uçmakdere,…

How do you get to Tekirdağ?

By air: Tekirdağ Çorlu Airport (TEQ) is in the province, but it has only a small number of flights. Most visitors fly into Istanbul Airport, which has far more connections, and continue by road.

By road: Tekirdağ is about 135 km west of Istanbul, around two hours by road on the four-lane highway along the coast. Intercity coaches link Tekirdağ with Istanbul, Edirne and Çanakkale, and the main road on towards the Gallipoli Peninsula runs west through Malkara.

By sea: In summer, boats run from the Tekirdağ coast to the Marmara Islands, and motorboats link Şarköy with Avşa and Marmara Island in Balıkesir province.

Where should you stay in Tekirdağ?

Tekirdağ city has hotels along and just behind the seafront, convenient for the museums, the Rüstem Paşa Mosque and the köfte restaurants. For a slower stay, head west: Şarköy has beach hotels and pensions, and the wine villages of Mürefte, Hoşköy and Uçmakdere have small guesthouses among the vineyards. Kumbağ and Barbaros, on the coast west of the city, are seaside resorts popular with Istanbul families.

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What type of climate does Tekirdağ have?

The 2002 inventory explains that the coastal strip feels the influence of the Mediterranean climate, with hot summers and mild winters, while the inland belt that takes in the Ergene basin has a more continental climate. On average August is the driest month and December the wettest. Summers on the coast are hot and humid, and snow is fairly common in winter, usually lying for a week or two between December and March.

When is the best time to visit Tekirdağ?

Late May to June is a fine time: the weather is warm, the sea is starting to warm up, and early June brings the Tekirdağ Cherry Festival. September is the other high point, with the grape harvest in the Şarköy and Mürefte vineyards; the 2002 inventory lists the Şarköy grape-harvest festival in early September. July and August are beach season and the coast fills up at weekends. Winter is quiet, cold and often wet.

What is the history of Tekirdağ?

The city began as Bisanthe, a colony of settlers from Samos. The inventory notes that the date of its foundation is not known exactly, but that the “-nt-” sound in its name shows a settlement existed here before the colony. Its name first appears in Herodotus, in his account of events in 430 BC. In the Anabasis, Xenophon records that the Odrysian king Seuthes I counted Bisanthe among the finest cities on his coast. It joined the Odrysian kingdom around 400 BC, and appears on the lists of the Athenian-led Delian League in 421 and again in 410 BC.

A short way east, at today’s Marmara Ereğlisi, Samian colonists founded Perinthos around 600 BC. According to the inventory, Pliny wrote that it was joined to the mainland by a strip of land 200 feet wide. Alexander the Great had a mint here, and in the Roman period the city won the right to build an imperial temple and keep the imperial cult, and to host games in which all the Greek cities took part. At the end of the 3rd century AD it was renamed Herakleia. Inland, the emperor Claudius founded the colony of Apri in AD 46, at today’s Kermeyan village near Malkara, and settled retired Roman soldiers there; it grew in importance in the Byzantine period.

In Byzantine times the city was known as Rhaedestos. The Ottomans took the area in the 14th century; the inventory dates the conquest of Malkara to 1357 and of Çorlu, a fortress on the Byzantine road between Constantinople and Europe, to 1361. Under Ottoman rule Western writers called the city Rodosto, and from 1720 until his death in 1735 it was the place of exile of Francis II Rákóczi, leader of the Hungarian uprising against the Habsburgs. The poet Namık Kemal was born here in 1840.

The 20th century brought repeated occupations. Bulgarian forces held the city from November 1912 to July 1913 during the Balkan Wars, and Greek forces from 20 July 1920 until 13 November 1922, after the Armistice of Mudanya. 13 November is still marked every year as the city’s liberation day.

What is Tekirdağ famous for?

Tekirdağ köfte. Small, spicy, cylindrical grilled meatballs, traditionally followed by a sweet of local cheese and semolina. Köfte restaurants line the seafront.

Rakı and wine. Tekirdağ is known across Türkiye for its rakı, and the slopes around Şarköy and Mürefte are one of the country’s main wine regions.

Cherries. Celebrated each June with the Tekirdağ Cherry Festival.

Rákóczi. For Hungarians, Tekirdağ (Rodosto) is a place of pilgrimage because of the prince who lived and died here in exile.

What are the historical places of Tekirdağ?

In Tekirdağ city

Rüstem Paşa Mosque. Built in 1553 by Mimar Sinan for Rüstem Paşa, grand vizier and son-in-law of Süleyman the Magnificent, on a hill above the sea, with a six-domed bedesten (covered market) beside it. See our Rüstem Paşa Mosque guide.

Hüseyin Paşa (İnecik İmaret) Mosque. Built in 1498 by Hüseyin Paşa, mirliva (district governor) of Antalya, in İnecik village. The inventory counts it among the oldest mosques in the Tekirdağ area and notes its unusual inverted-T plan, its five-domed portico and Hüseyin Paşa’s tomb to the west.

Eski Cami. Built in 1830 by Ahmet Ağa, Tekirdağ’s superintendent of grain supplies. Its first building burned, so it has no inscription. It is long and rectangular, on two floors, with galleries on three sides and a circular muezzin’s gallery projecting from the middle; in the garden is an octagonal şadırvan decorated with curtain motifs.

Orta Cami. Built between 1845 and 1855 by Kürkçü Sinan Ağa of rubble stone, with a Baroque-style mihrab niche flanked by acanthus-leaf pilasters and the names of the caliphs on panels on its walls.

Museums. The Tekirdağ Archaeology and Ethnography Museum, the Rákóczi Museum and the Namık Kemal House, a reconstruction of a traditional Tekirdağ house built by the Namık Kemal Association in 1993 near the poet’s birthplace and opened in 1994, with his works and household objects.

Around the province

Marmara Ereğlisi (Perinthos). The site of the ancient city lies in and around the district town on the coast east of Tekirdağ.

Malkara. Founded by the Thracians in the 5th century BC, according to the inventory, with the old name Mehalihoro. The Taşoğlu Mosque, built by Hacızade İbrahim Bey in 1406, has a minaret noted for its stonework, and the tomb of Gazi Ömer Bey, one of Mehmed the Conqueror’s commanders, who died at Malkara in 1503, stands inside the mosque of the same name.

Hora Lighthouse. A French-built lighthouse of 1876 at Hoşköy in Şarköy district. Its lamp of 96 crystals turns through 360 degrees, and the inventory calls it the second largest lighthouse in the region.

Çorlu. Ancient Tzurulum (the inventory gives Tzolous), a Byzantine fortress town on the road between Constantinople and Europe, taken by the Ottomans in 1361.

What are the best things to do in Tekirdağ?

• Eat Tekirdağ köfte on the seafront, followed by the local cheese-and-semolina dessert.
• Walk the old streets around the Rüstem Paşa Mosque and look for the surviving timber houses described below.
• Tour the wine country around Şarköy, Mürefte and Hoşköy, including the Kutman Wine Museum in Mürefte.
• Drive the cliff road to Uçmakdere, a village on a rocky coast below the Ganos Mountains.
• Swim at Kumbağ, Barbaros or Şarköy. The inventory calls Kumbağ one of the province’s leading leisure centres, and Barbaros, with long sandy beaches and green vineyards, one of the city’s summer and excursion spots.
• Go to a festival: the Cherry Festival in early June, the Marmara Ereğlisi circumcision-feast celebrations in late August, the Malkara and Saray fairs and the Şarköy grape-harvest festival in September, according to the 2002 inventory. Check current dates locally.

What are the best places to visit in Tekirdağ?

Rüstem Paşa Mosque is Mimar Sinan’s 1553 mosque on the hill above the harbour, with its restored six-domed bedesten.

Rákóczi Museum is the Ottoman house where Francis II Rákóczi, Prince of Transylvania, spent his last years in exile, kept as a museum by the Hungarian state.

Tekirdağ Archaeology and Ethnography Museum, in the former governor’s residence, covers finds from 4500 BC to the Ottoman period, with sarcophagi and inscriptions in the garden.

Şarköy is the wine and beach district on the coast to the west, with Mürefte, Hoşköy, Uçmakdere and Gaziköy (ancient Ganos).

Also worth your time: the Namık Kemal House, Kumbağ and Barbaros beaches, Marmara Ereğlisi, and Malkara. Edirne and the Gallipoli Peninsula are both within a day’s drive.

What is the traditional food of Tekirdağ?

Beyond köfte, the 2002 inventory lists the traditional dishes of Tekirdağ as bulama, çeneçarpan soup, cıllık, elbasan tava, gülbarak böreği, höşmelim, hakuk, kalle, kodrul, mangır, papaz mancası, pireşe, şaraşura, borani with yoghurt and zennik. Every year, during Tourism Week, the provincial tourism promotion association held a cooking competition to keep the local cuisine alive. Seafood is part of the table too: the inventory notes that fishing is concentrated on the Marmara Ereğlisi and Şarköy coast, and that the most harvested product was the white sand clam, which was exported.

What should you buy in Tekirdağ?

Rakı and Thracian wine from the Şarköy and Mürefte wineries are the obvious things to take home, along with cherries in season. The inventory notes that weaving, basket-making, saddlery and the making of çarık (rawhide sandals) were the most widespread crafts, and that, according to Evliya Çelebi, weaving here began with the Yörük nomads who arrived in the 14th century. Kilim weaving continued in the villages of Karacakılavuz and Ferhadanlı.

Frequently asked questions about Tekirdağ

What do the official records say about Tekirdağ?

The traditional architecture whose remains have survived in the province is largely an extension of Ottoman-Turkish culture, though traces of interaction with Western Thrace can also be found. The timber-framed houses are two or three storeys high. The timber construction here, common in the western Black Sea and northern Marmara, consists of load-bearing walls clad horizontally with wooden boards.

Attic floors are very common, and above the bay window (cumba) on the middle floor the attic takes the form of a balcony. The wooden posts that hold up the roof over the balcony are carved. The houses generally have an inner hall (sofa) plan. While the ground floor of traditional Turkish houses was mostly used as a stone-paved entrance, store or stable, in Tekirdağ houses it was arranged as living space. The architectural works that have survived to the present day are protected as listed sites. (Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Tekirdağ Provincial Tourism Inventory, 2002)