Safranbolu and Amasra in 2 days: the old bazaar, mansions and castle

Start the day by seeing the town from above. Hıdırlık Hill rises at the entrance to Safranbolu on the road from Kastamonu, and from here the red-tiled roofs of the old bazaar quarter and the timber houses stacked against the valley come into view at once. According to the municipality, this is where the first Turks to arrive in Safranbolu settled, and where rain prayers and Hıdırellez celebrations were held. On the hill stand the tomb of Hasan Pasha, governor of Köstendil, the shrine of Hızır Pasha, the memorial grave of Dr. Ali Yaver Ataman, a well-known figure of the War of Independence, and two open-air prayer platforms. Morning light picks out the bay windows and chimneys of the houses, and getting your bearings here makes the rest of the walk much easier.

Kazdağlı Square is the natural place to begin a walk through the historic centre, and the Cinci Inn beside it is one of the buildings that most directly tells the story of Safranbolu as a stop on the caravan routes. Built in the mid-17th century of cut stone and rubble by Cinci Hoca, a chief judge of Anatolia under Sultan İbrahim, the inn has two storeys, 63 rooms and a pool in the middle of its courtyard. Its entrance door, lock and key are cited as examples of Turkish ironwork. From the roof terrace the roofs and minarets of the bazaar quarter spread out in a panorama. The nearby Cinci Hamam was also built in 1645; it has separate sections for women and men and still works as a bathhouse today.

The narrow streets behind the inn lead into the bazaar quarter. The Yemeniciler Arasta is a row of 48 timber shops side by side; once the place where the leather slippers called yemeni were made, it is now full of small shops selling crafts and souvenirs. A little further on, the Blacksmiths’ Bazaar keeps its Ottoman look, and its handmade copperware stands out. In the same area, the Köprülü Mehmet Pasha Mosque was built in 1661–1662 by Grand Vizier Köprülü Mehmet Pasha; the sundial in its courtyard marks the time in ten-minute intervals with Arabic numerals. The İzzet Mehmet Pasha Mosque, built in 1796, is considered a small version of the Nuruosmaniye Mosque in Istanbul.

After lunch it is time to step inside a Safranbolu house. Kaymakamlar House is one of the important examples of 18th- and 19th-century Safranbolu houses and is thought to date from the early 19th century. It takes its name from the title kaim-makam, or lieutenant colonel, given to its owner Hacı Mehmet Efendi, commander of the Safranbolu barracks. The Ministry of Culture expropriated and restored the house in 1979, and today it is visited as a house museum. Carved wooden ceiling roses, built-in cupboards and divans in the rooms show how the house was arranged around winter and summer life; climbing from the courtyard to the upper floors, it is easy to picture how it housed a large family.

The stone Old Government House on the castle hill is now home to the City History Museum, which tells Safranbolu’s story. According to its entrance inscription, the building was put up in 1904 through the efforts of Enis Pasha, governor of Kastamonu, and district governor Mir Ahmet Bey, with contributions from the townspeople; it was restored in the 2000s and turned into a museum. Inside, sections cover the town’s crafts, trade and daily life. Beside the museum, the Clock Tower was built in 1797 by İzzet Mehmet Pasha, the Safranbolu-born grand vizier of Sultan Selim III. The square tower can be visited as part of the museum, and the open-air area beside it displays fifteen miniature clock towers, fourteen from Türkiye and one from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

If you have the daylight and the energy, spend the late afternoon in Tokatlı Canyon. One end of the canyon is at Tokatlı village and the other at the Gümüş quarter of the old bazaar, with a 9-kilometre walking trail between them; you do not need to walk it all, as even a short stretch gives a sense of the canyon’s depth. Descending into the canyon, the İncekaya Aqueduct on your left is 116 metres long with six arches, and Tokatlı Stream flows beneath it. The sight of the stone arches joining the two sides of the canyon is a reminder that Safranbolu is more than its timber houses. On the way back you can walk down to the bazaar quarter for dinner.

Begin the second day at Yörük Village, eleven kilometres outside Safranbolu. The Ministry of Culture placed the village, on the Safranbolu–Araç road, under protection in 1997, and the municipality describes it as a small model of Safranbolu; it has 93 listed buildings. Once the seat of the Ottoman district of Yörükan-ı Taraklıborlu, the village with its stone-based, timber-framed houses, communal laundry and fountains lets you see the same architecture in a quieter setting than the bazaar quarter. Mornings are calm here; as you walk the lanes, remember that many of the houses are still lived in.

Drive north to Amasra on the western Black Sea coast and, after lunch, head up to the castle. Amasra Castle was built in the Byzantine period and saw major repairs under the Genoese and the Ottomans. It has two main parts: Sormagir Castle on Boztepe and Zindan Castle in Amasra itself. Sormagir is joined to the mainland by the Kemere Bridge, and the arched main gate beside the bridge is known as Karanlık Yer, the dark place. Inside the castle, the Fatih Mosque is a 9th-century Byzantine church converted into a mosque in 1460. From the walls you can see both bays, Küçükliman and Büyükliman, at once, and it is easy to see why the town grew up between two natural harbours.

Walk down from the castle to the Kum quarter for the Amasra Museum. It occupies the building of a naval school begun in 1884 and never finished; the ministry restored the building in 1976 and the museum opened in 1982. Finds from the Hellenistic and Roman periods through the Byzantine, Genoese and Ottoman eras are shown in four halls, two for archaeology and two for ethnography. The garden holds sarcophagi, gravestones, altars, Ottoman cannons and anchors. Following through these objects the layers you saw at the castle is a good way to pull the town’s long history together.

End the day on the shore of the two harbours. Amasra appears in historical sources as Sesamos; its story runs from a Phoenician trading colony through the Ionian, Lydian, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Genoese periods to Ottoman rule in 1460. It is said that Sultan Mehmed II looked down on the town from Bakacak Hill and called it Çeşm-i Cihan, the eye of the world; the hill is known today as Çeşm-i Cihan Hill. Walking along the shore in the late-afternoon light, looking at the fishing boats and the island, makes a calm close before the journey back.