Titus' Tunnel

From Antakya we drove (through much awful road construction) to the sea, the beach town of Cevlik, the Roman town of Seleuceia, which was Antioch's port. Seleuceia was subject to severe flooding from the mountains nearby above, so the Romans did pretty much what they always did: divert the river. In this case the diversion was a mile-long trench/tunnel, commissioned by the emporers Titus and Vespasian. Just as we started trudging up the hill, the two tour buses of veterans pulled up, so we toured with them and enjoyed a long chat with one whose English was excellent.

In the trench, with the vets

Looks pretty much like this, from the bottom

This large mountain is the coastal border with Syria, the

Mediterranean below

A Turkish good luck tree (read Birds

Without Wings)

Roman bridge over the trench

The actual tunnel portion was getting a new

access staircase and was closed

At the end of the trail was a sizeable Roman necropolis

Interior view; do the shells make it Rococco? Did St. James

perhaps stop by here on his way to Galicia?

The trail passed through assorted citrus and olive

groves; we are definitely in the Mediterranean now

Olives, yum

Bucket of yum