Şanlıurfa in 2 days: Göbeklitepe, the museums and Balıklıgöl

On a hill east of the city, giant T-shaped pillars rise from the ground, a find that has made us rethink what we knew about the human move to settled life. Some of the stones carry animal reliefs; looking at them closely in the early morning, while the site is still quiet, is the most powerful moment of the visit. Think of Göbeklitepe not as a museum but as a place where people gathered thousands of years ago: the finds you see in the museum this afternoon will give meaning to the layout you see here.

After lunch, come here to complete the context of the morning's site. Göbeklitepe's finds are displayed in this museum, which GoTürkiye says holds the world's largest Neolithic collection. Large halls and animation areas tell the story step by step, from hunter-gatherers to the first settlements. What you saw as stone this morning you see a second time here, now with its story.

A few hundred metres from the Neolithic, you step into the city's Roman-era wealth. The building known as the "Villa of the Amazons", after the amazon scenes found in the excavation, has floors covered in mosaics of hunting amazons and of Ktisis. In a single day you leap across thousands of years: in the morning giant stone pillars, in the late afternoon the colourful floors of a Roman villa.

End the day in the courtyard of a historic han. GoTürkiye names Gümrük Han as a place to drink mırra, a bitter, dark coffee served a little at a time in small handleless cups. In the Kazaz bazaar north of the han and the nearby Sipahi and Hüseyniye bazaars there are workshops in traditional crafts, and the coppersmiths' hammering carries on into the evening. For dinner, walk to the restaurants around Haşimiye Square or join a sıra gecesi evening in an old mansion.

The city's heart, where legend and daily life overlap. According to belief, the fire into which Abraham was thrown turned to water and the logs to fish, which is why the fish in the lake are considered sacred, respected and never eaten. Of the two lakes in the centre, Halil-ür Rahman has the mosque complex of the same name at its south-west corner, with the Ayn-ı Zeliha lake beside it. Walking the shore early, before the crowds, and watching the fish crowd at the surface is the calmest start to the day.

A few minutes' walk from Balıklıgöl brings you to the place that best shows the city's role in faith tourism. According to belief, Abraham was born in the cave south of the mosque courtyard and lived there until the age of seven; the water in the cave is believed to heal. This is not a museum but a living place of pilgrimage: standing quietly among the waiting visitors shows you how the city lives today.

Rising on Dambak Hill just south of Balıklıgöl, the castle defines the city's skyline. The remains you see date from the Abbasid period, while the two columns with Corinthian capitals on top are far older, from the days of the Kingdom of Edessa. A rock-cut ditch surrounds three sides. Because the official page lists the castle as closed, the plan suggests seeing it from its foot and the lakeshore, which is anyway where the columns line up best with the lakes and mosque domes.

After lunch around Haşimiye Square, you can head out to Harran. The beehive-shaped mud-brick houses of today's village are the last examples of a building type used in the region since very early times; they stay cool in summer and warm in winter and can be enlarged by adding domes. The archaeological site, however, is currently closed after the earthquake. Check its status before going; if it is closed, spend the afternoon on a second, longer visit to the Şanlıurfa Museum or at the craft workshops by Balıklıgöl.