Lampron Castle, Namrun

Lampron Castle

It's hot and humid, so it's about that time of year for many Turkish families to head up to their high country homes, called Yayla. Our family has a shuttered little limestone farmhouse in Gozne. Lonely, because it is never used.

Sometimes I wish one of the local djinn would move in at least. I've had news that someone chopped down the large fir in the side yard, since we weren't there to stop them.

Our Mersin neighbors were from Tarsus, so their yayla was the village of Çamlıyayla (yayla with pines). It's very picturesque, set high in the Taurus mountains, overlooking the Cilician Gates of Pozanti.

Perched even higher above the town is Namrun or Lampron, a crusader castle that was once home to a branch of Armenian princes, and part of my main character's heritage.

It's a spur castle complete with a lower ward, upper ward, and some stairs cut into the side of a craggy peak. However, if you didn't know what to look for, you might mistake it for a pile of rocks, but for the one a barrel vaulted hall left standing.

I've heard the only inhabitant there is a squirrel named Ozymandias.

The Cilician Gates

image via wikipedia

I remember taking down pages and pages (and pages) of notes about Alexander The Great in Mrs. Wilcox's class. That must have been 9th grade, I think. Maybe we called it World History too. Anyhoo, I recall something about the strategic importance of the Cilician Gates from back then.

ATG, as Mrs. Wilcox preferred to call him, was in good company. Hittites, Crusaders, Saint Paul... they all travelled the steep, 68 mile gauntlet through forest and sometimes flood waters of the (now Gökoluk) river gorge. It took five days to cross from the Cilician plains to Cappadocia, if thieves didn't have their way with you first.

The pesky gates spoiled the plans of Pompey (also The Great), who wanted to ride back to Rome victorious on a contraption pulled by four elephants. The pass was too narrow and he was forced to use horses.

I say! Get off your high - elephant - you haughty Roman, you. And you kinighits - those are not horses. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you need to brush up on your Monty Python.)

Even now, the way is only wide enough for a slim highway to slither through, and that's after extensive blasting. The late Ottomans built some tunnels and viaducts for a narrow gauge train track that's just visible every now and then on the other side of the river.

One time we went up the old, still-twisted road instead. (I don't recommend it, unless you have nerves of steel.) The switchbacks were treacherous and someone had lost a load of cotton bales down a hillside.

It was very quiet in the car.

When we got through to the Anatolian plain, my father remarked that he had no idea Turkey had such mountains. I can only say whatever ideas I had, Turkey shattered them. I was always discovering something new. Or old. It was only new to me.

When I see this, I know home is on the other side, but I hold my breath until I get there. Behold the Taurus Mountains at the Cilician Gates:

http://www.abu.nb.ca/courses/NTIntro/images/CilicianGates.htm



And for the record: Mt. Ararat is the tallest mountain in Turkey at 16,854 ft. Yes, that Ararat. The one with the Ark.