Sights in Van
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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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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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