Things to do in The Black Sea & Northeastern Anatolia
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Erzurum Evleri
A stunner set in an old wooden house near the main drag. It feels like half the paraphernalia from six centuries of the Ottoman Empire has ended up here, with an onslaught of kilims (pileless woven rugs), pictures, weapons, farming tools and other collectibles from floor to ceiling. Surrender to the languor of the private alcoves with cushions and low tables and treat yourself to a soup, a börek (filled pastry) or a tandır kebap (stew). The nearby Daşhane, which has the same management, features live music on Friday and Saturday evenings. If only it was licensed!
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Güzelyurt Restorant
This iconic restaurant, in business since 1928, is so adorable because it feels so anachronistic, with shrouded windows, old-fashioned charm and thick carpets. It's also a great place to spill money on a great meal. The mezes are a headliner, with about 20 different specialities, but the menu also features a smattering of mains, including 'Bof Straganof' (no typo), all served by old-school, bow-tied waiters. It's licensed as well.
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Ocakbaşı Restoran
Resisting the passage of time, this well-established restaurant remains at the pinnacle of Kars' eating scene. The ali nazık (aubergine purée with yoghurt and meat) or the Anteplim pide (sesame bread stuffed with meat, cheese, parsley, nuts and eggs), its two signature dishes, should win awards. The pictorial menu, with fairly accurate English translations, is of great help. It has two adjoining rooms, including a mock troglodytic one (wow!), but it's not licensed (boo!).
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Vatan Lokantası
Don't expect culinary revelations in this snappy joint, just the usual suspects honestly prepared and served by attentive waiters. Grab a tavuk şiş and satisfy the inner self.
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Şişman Efes Pub
Now this is a proper pub: wooden tables, doodling barman, music drowned out by the general hubbub and the eponymous Efes beer served in 2.5L towers (around €8) on request.
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İshak Paşa Palace
Located 6km uphill southeast of town, this is the epitome of the Thousand and One Nights castle. Part of its magic derives from its setting – it's perched on a small plateau abutting stark cliffs and overlooking a plain, framed by Mt Ararat.
The palace was begun in 1685 by Çolak Abdi Paşa and completed in 1784 by his son, a Kurdish chieftain named İshak (Isaac). The architecture is a superb amalgam of Seljuk, Ottoman, Georgian, Persian and Armenian styles.
The palace's elaborate main entrance leads into the first courtyard, which would have been opened to merchants and guests.
Only family and special guests would have been allowed into the second courtyard. Here you can…
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Van Castle
Nothing is quite so impressive in Van as the Van Castle, which dominates the view of the city. About 3km west of the city centre, it's a wonderful place to come for a picnic.
Just past the spot where the minibus drops you, on the northern side of the rock, is a modern mosque and the tomb of Abdurrahman Gazi, a Muslim holy man. It's frequently visited by pilgrims including infertile women who are thought to be helped by coming here. Further on, at the northwestern corner, you'll reach the ticket office, then the car park, where there are toilets and a tea garden.
A stairway from the car park leads up the rock. Once you've reached the summit, the old city reveals itself like…
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Aya Sofya Museum
One of Trabzon's star attractions, the Aya Sofya Museum, originally Hagia Sophia (Church of the Divine Wisdom), is 4km west of the centre on a terrace that once held a pagan temple. Built in the late Byzantine period, between 1238 and 1263, the church was clearly influenced by Georgian and Seljuk design, although the marvellous wall paintings and mosaic floors follow the prevailing Constantinople style.
It was converted to a mosque after the conquest in 1461, and later used as an ammunition storage depot and hospital by the Russians, before being fully restored in the 1960s.
Enter through the western entrance into the vaulted narthex to view the best-preserved, vividly col…
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Gölbaşı
Legend had it that Abraham (İbrahim), who is a great Islamic prophet, was in old Urfa destroying pagan gods one day when Nimrod, the local Assyrian king, took offence at this rash behaviour. Nimrod had Abraham immolated on a funeral pyre, but God turned the fire into water and the burning coals into fish. Abraham himself was hurled into the air from the hill where the fortress stands, but landed safely in a bed of roses.
The picturesque Gölbaşı area of Urfa is a symbolic re-creation of this story. Two rectangular pools of water (Balıklı Göl and Ayn-i Zeliha) are filled with supposedly sacred carp, while the area west of the Hasan Padişah Camii is a gorgeous rose gar…
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Dergah
Southeast of Gölbaşı is the Dergah complex of mosques and parks surrounding the colonnaded courtyard of the Hazreti İbrahim Halilullah, built and rebuilt over the centuries as a place of pilgrimage. Its western side is marked by the Mevlid-i Halil Camii, a large Ottoman-style mosque. At its southern side is the entrance to the cave where Abraham was reputedly born. He lived here in hiding for his first seven years – King Nimrod, responding to a prophecy he'd received in a dream, feared that a newborn would eventually steal his crown, so he had all babies killed. This is still a place of pilgrimage and prayer, with separate entrances for men and women.
To visit these …
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Urfa's Bazaar
After visiting the Şanlıurfa Museum, ponder your new-found knowledge with a wander through Urfa's bazaar. Spreading itself east of the Narıncı Camii, it is a jumble of streets, some covered, some open, selling everything from sheepskins and pigeons to jeans and handmade shoes. It was largely built by Süleyman the Magnificent in the mid-16th century. The best idea is just to dive in and inevitably get lost. Women should be on guard for lustful hands.
One of the most interesting areas is the bedesten (kazaz pazarı), an ancient caravanserai where silk goods were sold. Today you'll still find silk scarves sold here, as well as gaudy modern carpets and the lovely blue an…
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Prophet Job's Site
Although it's not the highlight of a trip, Prophet Job's Site is worth the bus ride for its historic significance. It's about 1km southeast of the Gölbaşı district. Legend holds that Eyyüp (Job) was a prosperous and devout man, thus despised by İblis (Satan). İblis took away Job's health, wealth and family, to force him into a crisis of faith. Instead, Job retreated to the cave (Eyyüp Peygamber Makamı) you see here, where he waited patiently in devotion to God.
After seven years, God restored his possessions and health, the latter by means of a freshwater spring that Job unleashed by thumping the ground with his heel. Pilgrims come here to wish for the patience of…
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Atatürk Villa
Escape busy Trabzon at the Atatürk Villa, 5km southwest of Atatürk Alanı. Set above Trabzon in a forested neighbourhood, it has fine views and lovely gardens. The three-storey white villa, designed in a Black Sea–style popular in the Crimea, was built between 1890 and 1903 for a wealthy Trabzon banking family, and given to Atatürk when he visited in 1924. It's now a museum of Atatürk memorabilia. Don't miss the simple table in the study with a map of the WWI Dardanelles campaign scratched into the wood.
City buses labelled 'Köşk', leave from the bus park opposite the old coast road (Devlet Sahil Yolu Caddesi) and drop you outside the villa (TL1.50). Don't get out at…
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Kars Castle
North of the river in the older part of the city, this is worth the knee-jarring climb, if only for the smashing views over the town and the steppe in fine weather. Records show that Saltuk Turks built a fortress here in 1153. It was torn down by the Mongol conqueror Tamerlane in 1386 and rebuilt several times in the following centuries. The castle was the scene of bitter fighting during and after WWI. When the Russian armies withdrew in 1920, control of Kars was left in the hands of the Armenian forces, until the republican armies took the kalesi.
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Sıra Geceleri
Nightlife in Urfa? In the City of Prophets, this may sound a contradiction in terms, but the evenings in Urfa are the hottest in eastern Anatolia, with high-octane dancing almost every night. What makes the city tick is the sıra geceleri , 'traditional nights' that are held in upscale restaurants. The best venues to check out are Beyzade Konak, Gülizar Konukevi, Pınarbaşı Konağı and Cevahir Konuk Evi. Send us the pictures!
Picture şark odası (lounges) where guests sit, eat, sing and dance. After the meal, a live band plays old favourites that keep revellers rocking and dancing to their hearts' content.
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Kale
With astounding views, the fortress on Damlacık hill, from which Abraham was supposedly tossed, is an absolute must-see. Multiple conflicting histories claim it was either (a) built in Hellenistic times, (b) built by the Byzantines, (c) built during the Crusades or (d) built by the Turks. In any case, it's vast, looks magnificent when floodlit, and can be reached via a flight of stairs or a tunnel cut through the rock. On the top, the most interesting things are the pair of columns that local legend has dubbed the Throne of Nemrut after the supposed founder of Urfa, the biblical King Nimrod.
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Sütçü Fevzi
Sütçü Fevzi has a few tables set up outside. Sütçü Fevzi will give you a typical Van breakfast experience. Van is famed for its tasty kahvaltı (breakfast). Skip the usually bland breakfast that is served in your hotel and head straight to Eski Sümerbank Sokak, also called 'Kahvaltı Sokak' (Breakfast St), a pedestrianised side street running parallel to Cumhuriyet Caddesi.
Drool over otlu peynir (cheese mixed with a tangy herb, Van's speciality), beyaz peynir (a mild yellow cheese), honey from the highlands (mmm!), olives, kayma (clotted cream), butter, tomatoes, cucumbers and yumurta (eggs).
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Sütçü Kenan
Sütçü Kenan has a few tables set up outside. Sütçü Kenan will give you a typical Van breakfast experience. Van is famed for its tasty kahvaltı (breakfast). Skip the usually bland breakfast that is served in your hotel and head straight to Eski Sümerbank Sokak, also called 'Kahvaltı Sokak' (Breakfast St), a pedestrianised side street running parallel to Cumhuriyet Caddesi.
Drool over otlu peynir (cheese mixed with a tangy herb, Van's speciality), beyaz peynir (a mild yellow cheese), honey from the highlands (mmm!), olives, kayma (clotted cream), butter, tomatoes, cucumbers and yumurta (eggs).
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Van Museum
The small Van Museum boasts an outstanding collection of Urartian exhibits. The Urartian gold jewellery is the highlight, but the bronze belts, helmets, horse armour and terracotta figures are also well worth seeing.
The ethnographic exhibits upstairs include local Kurdish and Turkoman kilims and a carpeted sitting area, such as is found in village houses. The Genocide Section is a piece of one-sided propaganda displaying the contents of graves left from the massacres of Turks and Kurds by Armenians at Çavuşoğlu and Zeve.
The museum has a good bookshop with plenty of foreign-language titles about the region.
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Trabzon Museum
Just south of Uzun Sokak, this Italian-designed mansion was originally built for a Russian merchant in 1912 and inhabited briefly by Atatürk. The fantastic interiors and original furnishings put most Ottoman re-creations to shame, with a series of impressive high-ceilinged rooms displaying ethnographic and Islamic artefacts, mostly labelled in English. The basement archaeological section also has significant pieces, including a flattened bronze statue of Hermes from local excavations at Tabakhane and Byzantine finds from near Sumela.
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İç Kale
Diyarbakýr's single most conspicuous feature is its great circuit of basalt walls, probably dating from Roman times, although the present walls date from early Byzantine times (AD 330-500). At almost 6km in length these walls are said to be second in extent only to the Great Wall of China. They make a striking sight whether you're walking along the top or the bottom.
You can ascend the walls of the İç Kale to enjoy the fine views of the Tigris, flanked by a patchwork of market gardens, as it meanders 2km to 3km south to flow under the 11th-century On Gözlu Köprüsü (Ten-Eyed Bridge).
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Güzel Sanatlar Galerisi
Delve into Urfa's back streets and you'll find examples of the city's distinctive limestone houses with protruding bays supported on stone corbels. Although many of these houses are falling into decay (and some are far too large for modern families), a few have been restored, most notably the house of Hacı Hafızlar, near the PTT, which has been turned into an art gallery, the Güzel Sanatlar Galerisi.
The art is usually pretty awful but the courtyards and fine carved stonework are a joy to behold and they don't mind you wandering through.
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Çifte Minareli Medrese
Lying east of the centre, the single most definitive image of Erzurum dates from the 1200s when Erzurum was a wealthy Seljuk city, before it suffered attack and devastation by the Mongols in 1242. The facade is an example of the way the Seljuks liked to try out variation even while aiming for symmetry: the panels on either side of the entrance are identical in size and position but different in motif. The panel to the right bears the Seljuk eagle; to the left the motif is unfinished.
The twin brick minarets are decorated with eye-catching small blue tiles. Don't look for the tops of the minarets – they are gone, having succumbed to the vagaries of Erzurum's violent history…
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Şanlıurfa Museum
Up the hill off Atatürk Caddesi, the Şanlıurfa Museum showcases eastern Turkey's archaeological evolution.
The gardens contain various sculptures, and near the entrance are several mosaics, the most interesting showing assorted wild animals. Inside are Neolithic implements, Assyrian, Babylonian and Hittite relief stones, and other objects from Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman times.
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Meryem Ana Kilisesi
The wonderful Meryem Ana Kilisesi is still used by Orthodox Syrian Christians; they are Jacobites, or Monophysites, who refused to accept the doctrine laid down at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. This said that Jesus had two natures, being simultaneously fully divine and fully human - the Monophysites insisted he had only one divine nature. The church is beautifully maintained, although only about seven families still attend services.
You will have to hammer on the door as the custodian lives two courtyards away and may not hear you.
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