I met this beautiful city and and actually Turkey 6 years ago (25/05/2013) for the very first time. I am not saying it was love at first sight but later i fell in deep love with this mostly sunny, charming, crazy and historical town. I am so lucky and grateful to live in the second most beautiful city in the World, of course the absolute first is always my hometown, Budapest.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk arrived to Antalya for the first time in March of 1930 and his first impression and his most famous words what he said about Antalya are written on a wall at the entrance of the city : "Without a doubt, Antalya is the most beautiful place in the world!" (Hiç Şüphesiz ki Antalya Dünyanın En Güzel Yeridir!).
Antalya's most beautiful monument is undoubtedly the monumental gate leading into the Kaleiçi, Old Town. It is called the Hadrian's Gate or the Triple Gate . The first name is a memorial of the ancient history of the city, when, in the second century AD, it was visited by the Roman Emperor Hadrian, while the second term refers to the appearance of the monument, which has three archways.
Hadrian's Gate was built in 130 AD to commemorate the visit of Emperor Hadrian in Attaleia, as Antalya was known in this period. It was incorporated in the walls surrounding the city, and has become a major gateway to the city.
Fantastic stories are told about the gate, like the one about Makeda, Queen of Sheba, who drove through the gate, and then rested in Aspendos, on her way to a meeting with King Solomon. However, there is not a grain of truth in it since these events, even if they had been real, happened in the tenth century BC, and therefore long before the construction of the gate.
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