Aydos Kalesi was built in the Eastern Roman period and its name has barely changed since: Aetos, Greek for eagle. It stands on a hill of 325 metres in Sultanbeyli, the hill itself now called Aydos Dağı, and covers 26,000 square metres measured from its outer walls — a position, like most castles, commanding everything around it.
Its importance rose in the eleventh century, when the Turks began moving towards Constantinople, and fell again when the Crusades drew them out of the region. Fighting resumed here in the last part of the thirteenth century. Between 1326 and 1328 much of the Kocaeli peninsula came under Ottoman control, and the border between the two states then ran along the line from Aetos to Pentikion, today's Pendik. According to Âşıkpaşazâde, Orhan Gazi charged Abdurrahman Gazi, Akça Koca and Konur Alp with taking the castle; they first captured Semendra, now Samandıra, and then laid siege to Aydos. The Istanbul Archaeological Museums are carrying out excavation at the site.
When to go
- Climate
- Across İstanbul as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 6.8 °C in January to 24.7 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (99 mm) and lightest in July (22 mm). Long-term means for 1950-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
