Safranbolu

Outlying 225km north of Ankara, the Turkish historic town of Safranbolu boasts a glorious collection of old Ottoman houses, so beautifully preserved that the town qualifies as a Unesco World Heritage Site. It is a whole world away from the grim steel-manufacturing city of Karabuk just 10 km to the south. Today Safranbolu is on the Turkish tourist map although it is still not much visited by foreigners. Safranbolu is a place to enjoy walking along narrow cobbled lanes and observing traditional crafts and trades which keep being practiced as they were in Ottoman times.

During the 17th century, the major Ottoman trade route coming from the Black Sea on the north passed through Safranbolu, bringing commerce and wealth to the town. Even today, Safranbolu is a convenient place to pick up a variety of handicrafts, especially textiles, metal work, wooden artifacts, and shoes, either made locally or shipped in from around the country to supply holiday-makers from Istanbul. During the next two centuries Safranbolu’s wealthy inhabitants built mansions of sun-dried mud bricks, wood, and stucco and a very large number of these houses has survived till today. The principal church of the Greeks once living in the town dedicated to St Stephen has been restored after WWI and turned into a Great Mosque or Ulu Cami in Turkish.