Didymoteicho

Didymoteicho takes its name from the double walls that once ringed its acropolis, and the Byzantine fortifications still crown the rock above the town: long stretches of curtain wall, towers, gates and cisterns, freely accessible and largely unrestored, with the Evros plain spread out below toward the border. The town was an important Byzantine centre and briefly an imperial seat. Below the citadel stands the Bayezid Mosque, begun under Bayezid I and completed in 1420, one of the oldest Ottoman mosques in Europe and remarkable for its enormous pyramidal timber roof built without a masonry dome; it suffered a serious fire in 2017 and has been under restoration since. The old quarter beneath the walls keeps timber houses, hamams and fountains from the same centuries.

History

The name, from the Greek for "twin" and "wall", first appears in 591/592 and probably comes from the refortification of the city under Justinian I; in the West it was long known as Dimotica, and in Turkish as Dimetoka. The area was inhabited in Neolithic times and later held an important Thracian and Hellenistic town, sacked by the Romans in 204 BC, and in the early 2nd century Trajan founded a new city nearby on the Evros, Plotinopolis, named after his wife Pompeia Plotina (Wikipedia, Didymoteicho).

What to look for

• The citadel walls - Byzantine ramparts, towers and gates on the rock.
• The Bayezid Mosque - an early fifteenth-century building with a timber roof.
• The old quarter - timber houses, baths and fountains below the walls.
• The plain view - the Evros valley and the border country from above.

When to go

Spring and autumn; the Evros plain is very hot in summer and cold in winter. The mosque's restoration limits access, so check its status before travelling.

What to expect

The fortress is unmanaged: no ticket, no signage, uneven ground and unfenced drops. The mosque may be closed or scaffolded. Modern Didymoteicho is a quiet border town with limited tourist facilities.

Nearby

Soufli and its silk heritage lie south; the Evros delta and Alexandroupoli are further down the valley.