Amasya
Protected Historic Town On The UNESCO Tentative List; Pontic Royal Rock Tombs Above An Ottoman River Townscape · Amasya, Amasya
Amasya is a town squeezed into a gorge, with the green Yesilirmak running through the middle of it, a line of Ottoman timber houses standing on the north bank with their feet almost in the water, and a cliff rising straight behind them into which the kings of Pontus cut their tombs more than two thousand years ago. At night the tombs are floodlit and appear to hang over the roofs, which is the single image the town trades on and is worth the trip on its own. It was a royal city twice over: the Pontic capital before Rome, and later the place where Ottoman heirs were sent to learn to govern, which is why a town of this size has so many imperial mosques and medreses. Strabo, who effectively invented geography as a discipline, was born here. So were the apples - Amasya apples are a genuine local variety and the valley is full of them. Stay the night: the tombs are only floodlit after dark, and that is the whole point.
Yesilirmak Kiyisi, Amasya Merkez, Amasya, Amasya, Turkiye
The town and the riverside are open at all hours and the rock tombs are floodlit at night. The tombs themselves, the citadel, the museum and the house museums keep daytime hours and some close one day a week. The Bimarhane and the medreses have their own hours. Winter is cold and some sites shorten their day considerably.