
The Arslantepe Excavations and the Birth of the State
About seven kilometres northeast of Malatya, rising among the apricot orchards of Orduzu, Arslantepe looks at first sight like an ordinary hill.
Culture and arts guides, event recommendations and stories from the city.

About seven kilometres northeast of Malatya, rising among the apricot orchards of Orduzu, Arslantepe looks at first sight like an ordinary hill.

Anyone who arrives in Malatya in summer first recognises the city by its scent.

A day in Kastamonu often begins with a simit and ends in the late afternoon with an etli ekmek fresh from a stone oven. In between there may be a slice of pastırma, a bowl of tirit or a plate of ekşili pilav.

As the road from Kastamonu towards Sinop approaches Taşköprü, it drops into a wide river plain.

Konuralp, eight kilometres north of Düzce, looks at first glance like a quiet neighbourhood of the city.

Düzce is easy to find on a map. It is a small province halfway along the road between Istanbul and Ankara, touching the Black Sea only along the coast of Akçakoca.

In the southwest of Bolu, squeezed between forested mountains, two small towns, Mudurnu and Göynük, hold the best preserved traditional fabric in the province.

In the north of Bolu, among forested hills, lies Mengen, a small district whose name has become almost a synonym for a profession, something few places in Türkiye can claim.

Whichever road brings you into Zonguldak, the first thing the city tells you is how young it is.

Anyone who comes to Manisa at the end of summer passes through rows of vines stretching for miles across the Gediz plain.

Every spring, small pieces wrapped in coloured paper fall from the sky in Manisa. The crowd looks up, hands reach into the air, and every piece caught before it touches the ground is greeted with a cheer.

Anyone who arrives in Isparta at the end of May gets to know the city by smell before sight.

Mention Isparta and two things come to mind, roses and carpets. Roses fill the city's spring with their scent, while carpets set the rhythm of homes, workshops and markets for the rest of the year.

Telling the story of Antakya without its mosaics leaves something out. The floor mosaics found in the city and in the villas around it form one of the largest mosaic collections in the world today.

Travellers who come to Hatay often get to know the city through its table first.

Sitting down at its table is a good way to start getting to know Elazığ.

When evening falls on the Harput plateau, the lights of the provincial centre spread across the plain below and the quiet of the old town sets in. That quiet is where a musical tradition grew over centuries.

Anyone arriving in Diyarbakır for the first time notices the colour of the city at once. Walls, towers, inn courtyards, mansion facades and paving stones meet in a tone between dark grey and black.

A traveller arriving in Diyarbakır first meets the city through its walls, and then through its table.

Most readers picture the Tekirdağ table as a table built on meat. Yet the sweet side of the province is at least as distinctive as its köfte, and the main ingredient on that side is, surprisingly, cheese.

The first question most visitors to Tekirdağ ask is the same: where can I eat köfte? The question is fair, because the name of this city has become almost a synonym for a dish.

Those who know Samsun as a port city and a centre of industry and trade often do not realise that its soil is among the most excavated on the Black Sea coast.

Whether you reach Samsun by sea or by land, the first thing to greet you is the smell of a bakery.

Two green hills rise among the crowded neighbourhoods of Mersin and Tarsus. They are covered with pine trees, footpaths and terraces, and at first glance they look like ordinary parks.