Taraklı

“Slowly, slowly you will climb these stairs, / A heap of sun-colored leaves about your skirts…” writes Ahmet Haşim in his poem ‘The Staircase’. Walking the steep streets of Taraklı, which lean against the valley, these lines spill from your lips of their own accord; for in this town, hurrying is hardly possible. The slopes won’t allow it, and the bay windows of the wooden mansions make you stop and look… Most of the houses have two or three floors: the lower ones of stone, the upper of wood, with windows leaning curiously out over the street.