I am sitting in the Ottoman courtyard at Ruin Adalya in the old town of Antalya, drinking a tulip glass of black sweet tea and munching near-perfect baklava, and twenty feet beneath me the Romans are still there. That is to say, the Ottoman courtyard is paved with Lycian limestone but sections of it are now made of glass, and through the glass I can see the old Roman road.
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Tim Shipman
Revealed: the missing Mandelson messages
Which, as metaphorical launchpads go, will do very nicely. Yes, Antalya has, as many Brits know, fine beaches, serious resorts, agreeably cheap food and wine, and the odd Roman temple. But the history of this stretch of Mediterranean coast goes back further than that, and deeper, so much deeper. And I want to trace that extraordinary depth.
