Uzunköprü is a small town in Turkish Thrace, southwest of Edirne. Its name means "long bridge", and that is still the reason to come: a 15th-century Ottoman span across the Ergene valley, built under Sultan Murad II to secure the road towards Edirne and the Balkans.
The town grew up as a service settlement for the bridge and later became a borderland trading town. Russian, Bulgarian, and Greek occupations all passed through before the modern Turkish-Greek border settled nearby after 1923.
Uzunköprü is not polished, and the surrounding land is mostly low, fertile farming country. But the bridge, the restored Greek church, and a few Ottoman-era mosques make it a worthwhile pause if you are travelling between Edirne, Keşan, and the Gallipoli peninsula.