Best Things to Do in Şanlıurfa

Şanlıurfa takes you further back in human architectural history than anywhere else on the planet while surrounding you with living Silk Road bazaars and music. Here are the ten experiences that define a visit.

1. Walk the elevated boardwalk around 11,600-year-old UNESCO-listed Göbeklitepe. Stand directly above Enclosures A, B, C and D, where hunter-gatherers carved foxes, vultures, scorpions and human arms onto 16-tonne limestone T-pillars around 9600 BC.
2. Visit Göbeklitepe's astonishing sister site at Karahantepe.Fifty minutes south-east in Tek Tek Mountains National Park, look into a prehistoric pit chamber carved straight out of the solid bedrock with eleven monolithic pillars and a 3D human head emerging from the rock wall.
3. Spend half a day inside the Şanlıurfa Archaeology Museum and Haleplibahçe Mosaic Museum. Meet the 11,000-year-old life-size Balıklıgöl (Urfa) Man, the oldest naturalistic human statue ever found, and see the only Roman mosaics in the world depicting hunting Amazon warrior queens.
4. Feed the sacred carp at Balıklıgöl (Pool of Abraham) and Aynzeliha Lake. Stroll the arcaded stone pools beneath Urfa Castle and take a wooden rowboat out on tree-shaded Aynzeliha.

5. Drink menengiç or mırra coffee inside 1563 Gümrük Hanı and the Historic Bazaars. Sit beside the natural water channel borrowed from Balıklıgöl running right through the courtyard of Suleiman the Magnificent's customs caravanserai.
6. Explore the illuminated Roman rock tombs of Kızılkoyun Necropolis and Urfa Castle. Walk through sixty 2nd- to 4th-century AD Edessan rock-cut family tombs right in the middle of town.
7. Drive south to the mudbrick beehive domes of Harran, Bazda Caves and Soğmatar. Step inside cool conical adobe houses, stand before the tower of the world's first Islamic university, and enter monumental underground stone quarries.
8. Eat smoky Urfa ciğer kebabı (lamb liver) and attend a Sıra Gecesi. Experience hand-kneaded çiğ köfte, sizzling şıllık dessert and traditional folk music inside a historic stone mansion.

9. Wander the stone alleys, churches and musical houses of Old Urfa (Karakoyun & 58 Meydanı). Discover the 1861 Reji Church, Ulu Cami and carved limestone kabaltı tunnel streets.
10. Take a boat cruise through Sunken Halfeti and see the Bald Ibis in Birecik. Sail on the Euphrates reservoir past the submerged minaret of Savaşan.