Eastern Heritage

Drive east to Sanliurfa, around two hours. The city sits on the edge of the Mesopotamian plain, the air gets drier as you go.

Lunch in Urfa. Cevahir Han in the old town, set in a restored caravanserai courtyard, is a comfortable place to start. Try cig kofte, the raw bulgur and pepper paste version that is canonically from this region, traditionally served wrapped in lettuce leaves with lemon.

Afternoon at the Balikligol, the sacred carp pool in the old town. Local tradition holds this is where Abraham was thrown into a fire by Nimrod, and the fire turned to water and the firewood to fish. The pool is full of carp considered sacred, fed by visitors. The complex around it includes the cave of Abraham and several Ottoman mosques.

Stay in the old town, in a restored Urfa house if possible. For the evening, a sira gecesi is the local tradition worth seeking out, a musical gathering with food and folk songs, originally a tradesmen's evening, now hosted at certain venues for visitors. Urfa is a conservative city and these evenings are typically alcohol free.

Half day at Gobekli Tepe, twenty minutes by taxi from the city. This is the oldest known temple complex in the world, dated to roughly 9500 BCE, predating Stonehenge by some seven thousand years and the invention of agriculture. The site changed how archaeologists think about the origins of civilisation. The standing T shaped pillars carved with animals are the famous photographs, but seeing the scale in person is what registers.

Plan two hours on site, longer if you want to walk between the excavated enclosures. There is a small visitor centre with context boards, take time with these before walking the site, the why of the place is more interesting than the what.

Back to Urfa for late lunch. Try a local kebapci for the Urfa kebap, more peppery than Antep, drier in texture.

Afternoon, the Sanliurfa Archaeology Museum, which holds many of the original Gobekli Tepe artefacts including the Urfa Man, the oldest known life sized human statue at around 11,000 years old. Two hours.

Evening, walk the Mevlid-i Halil mosque area as the sun sets over the old town. The light on the limestone walls is the photograph.

Morning detour south to Harran, around an hour from Urfa. This is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places on earth, mentioned in Genesis. The famous beehive houses, conical mud brick domes that work as passive cooling for the desert climate, are still standing in parts of the village. Walk through, talk to a family if invited, this is genuinely lived in landscape rather than a museum.

Lunch back in Urfa or on the road, then drive to Mardin, around two and a half hours northeast (a little more with the Harran backtrack). The road climbs out of the plain and the geography changes, you start to see the hills that mark the southeastern edge of Anatolia.

Arrive Mardin late afternoon. The old town is built into a south facing cliff, looking out over the Mesopotamian plain. Honey coloured limestone houses stack down the slope, with terraces that catch the evening light. Stay in the old town, in a stone house hotel.

Walk the main street at sunset, the views southward are as good as travel views get. Dinner at one of the rooftop terraces.

Morning walk through the Mardin old town from west to east. Side alleys here are nearly perpendicular to the main street and worth following. The architecture mixes Syriac, Armenian, Arab and Ottoman elements layered over each other, often within a single building. The Sultan Isa Medresesi from the fourteenth century has the most photographed doorway in the city.

Lunch at a Suryani restaurant, the Syriac Christian community here is small but still active. Try kibe, similar to icli kofte but specifically Syriac, and harire, the bulgur soup. The southeast has a long winemaking tradition going back thousands of years, and the Syriac community keeps it alive.

Afternoon, drive to Deyrulzafaran Monastery, fifteen minutes outside Mardin. A Syriac Orthodox monastery founded in the fifth century, still active, the home base of the Syriac Patriarch until the early twentieth century. The yellow stone gives the place its name, deyr zaferan, the saffron monastery.

Back to Mardin for dinner. The terraces along the cliff side are at their best after sunset, with the lights of villages stretching into the plain below.

Day trip east to Midyat, around an hour. Smaller and quieter than Mardin, also stone built, with several active Syriac neighbourhoods and silver workshops where filigree silver (telkari) is still made by hand.

Continue to Mor Gabriel Monastery, the oldest active Syriac Orthodox monastery in the world, founded in 397. Still functioning, with monks living and praying there. The afternoon visit is more relaxed than the morning one. Modest dress required.

Note: Hasankeyf, once a stop on routes like this, is now largely submerged under the Ilisu Dam reservoir. The old town and most of its historic structures are underwater, so it is no longer a practical destination.

Back to Mardin for dinner. Tonight is your last in stone.

You have two ways to close the loop here. If you rented a car in Gaziantep, the simplest is to drive it back and drop it where you picked it up, then fly out of Antep. The drive is around four to five hours, longer if you stop, and the road through southeastern Anatolia is part of the experience, the geography flattening into agricultural plain as you go west. If you would rather not double back, you can fly out directly from Mardin instead, which saves the long drive but means sorting out a one-way car drop in advance with the rental company.

If you are driving back, an optional stop at Halfeti, the half submerged village along the Euphrates dam reservoir, is worth it. It is a detour rather than directly on the route, around an hour north of Gaziantep, so it works best if you set out early or plan it as a deliberate half day. Take a small boat onto the water, drink tea at a riverside place. The minaret of the submerged Savasan village mosque still rises above the waterline, which is the photograph.

Spend your last night wherever your departure works best, in Mardin if you are flying out from there, or back in Gaziantep if you are returning the car and flying from Antep.

Slow morning. If your flight is late, breakfast at Tahmis, the historic coffeehouse, with a final menengic kahvesi, the wild pistachio coffee.

Last walk through the copper market. Buy something heavy you will use, a copper pan or coffee pot, this is one of the few places in Turkiye where the artisanal claim still holds.

Antep airport is twenty minutes from the centre. Direct flights to Istanbul, several to European capitals.