Titus Tunnel

Cevlik, Samandağı, Antakya. The Titus Tunnel (Titüs Tüneli) is a Roman engineering marvel. During the reign of Emperor Vespasian (69-79 AD), the Roman governors of Seleucia Pieria (Samandag), the port city for Antioch ad Orontes (Antakya), decided to divert a river.

They put Roman legionnaires, sailors and prisoners to work cutting a channel along and through the rock for about 1.4 km (nearly a mile). Continued under Emperor Titus (79-81), inscriptions tell us it was completed during the reigns of the Antonine emperors decades later. Today the channel is dry, but still worth a visit. A small parking area and entrance is just inland from the beach at Samandag. A path ascends along the channel, open to the sky, up and down steps and rocks, to where an arched limestone footbridge crosses. Above the footbridge, the channel continues into the solid rock. 

The prime reason that should be visited in Hatay is the Antakya Archeology Museum (Antakya Arkeoloji Müzesi), which houses a world famous collection of Roman and Byzantine mosaics. Stunning jewelry, statues, tombs and archeological findings belonging to various periods discovered at the excavations executed in Harbiye, Antakya, Accana, Cevlik and Iskenderun are exhibited in the museum. A little outside the city is the holy site where St. Peter`s Grotto is situated.