Escaping the crowds -- Çankırı: a day trip out of Ankara

Far fewer people think of hopping on a bus and heading up to Çankırı, even though it's only an hour-and-a-half away and turns out to have attractions that range from an old Selçuk mescit (chapel), through a collection of fine Ottoman houses and mosques, to what is billed as a cave but is actually an enormous salt mine.

As so often, initial impressions are somewhat misleading. Çankırı high street is a long canyon of concrete shop-cum-housing blocks. One of those blocks, however, houses a small museum which is the best place to start your explorations. Here you will be able to inspect the evidence of the city's long history which predates the Hittites. They, however, left the town its most significant antiquity, which is a huge red-clay vase decorated with images of a wedding. The original is now in the Ankara Museum of Anatolian Civilizations while an even larger copy stands near the bus station as a symbol of the town.

The museum is, quite frankly, in need of a makeover, although one room does display a collection of beautifully lit glass bottles dating back to Roman times, when Çankırı was called first Gangra and then Germanicopolis. What it does stock, though, is a map of the town together with a brochure listing all its attractions, clutching which you should duck behind the museum and head towards the Tatlıçay river. Hopefully you will come out near the Taş Mektep, an imposing stone-built schoolhouse dating back to 1886 in which Mustafa Kemal Atatürk stayed when on tour to promote the Hat Law abolishing the fez in favor of hats. It now serves as a Fine Arts High School.

Immediately across the road from the Taş Mektep stand a row of beautifully painted Ottoman houses, one of which used to contain a post office and library but has now been restored as a model “Yaran Evi,” a place where men would meet to talk, somewhat in the way that they did during the better known sıra gecesis of Şanlıurfa in the Southeast. A yaran gecesi lasted from just after evening prayers until just before dawn prayers, and offered an opportunity for men not just to have fun together but also to discuss pressing problems. Today the Yaran Evi is more like a private dining club with a small museum in memory of Mustafa Soydan, a prominent local journalist, on the ground floor.

Taş Mescit: the oldest site in the city

If you cross the river, head north and then turn left along Taş Mescit Caddesi you will come to Çankırı's most venerable site, the fortress-like Taş Mescit (Stone Chapel) which dates back to 1235 and the reign of the great Selçuk King Alaeddin Keykubad. Originally it formed part of a collection of buildings including a hospital and seminary paid for by the local governor, Cemalettin Feruh, whose tomb can be seen inside it. As is usual with Selçuk structures, its most impressive external feature is the elaborately carved doorway, accessed via a double staircase, but in the triangle beneath the steps there's an extraordinary single carving of two snakes entwined around each other. A symbol of medicine, it must have came originally from the hospital, which has since been lost, along with a cup with a snake wrapped round it symbolizing pharmacy that can be seen in the museum. The building eventually became a dervish lodge. Today it's a small mosque.

Those with energy might like to divert north along the banks of the Tatlıçay and climb the hill to the remains of Çankırı Kalesi (castle), bypassing on the way building work on a new mosque which will be named after Emir Karatekin Bey, the chieftain who in 1074 captured Çankırı and the neighboring towns for the Selçuks. Otherwise you can return to the town center in search of the Büyük Cami (Great Mosque), also known as the Sultan Süleyman Cami because it was built in 1558 during the reign of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent by Sadık Kalfa, an architect who had studied under the great Mimar Sinan. Beside it stands the attractive and newly restored Çivitçioğlu Medresesi, dating back to 1754 and half-heartedly open as an ethnographic museum.

Pretty as it is, the Çivitçioğlu is outstripped in the beauty stakes by the Buğdaypazarı (Wheat Market) Medresesi, a graceful galleried building that runs alongside one side of a courtyard in front of the Buğdaypazarı Cami. The Buğday Pazarı (Wheat Market) stands at the heart of the part of Çankırı where most of the lovely old Ottoman houses can be found. A few have been restored or patched up, but many are in a poor state of repair, their owners long since moved on to more comfortable lives in Ankara and İstanbul. As you wander around, you may stumble upon a rather ugly, concrete-faced wooden clock tower possibly dating back to 1886 but possibly commemorating the 25 anniversary of Sultan Abdülhamid II's accession to the throne in 1901. You may even stumble on an unusual restoration, a communal laundry (çamaşırhane) dating back to 1885 and in use until 1980 that was recently given new life as an events hall.

Turkey's single largest reserve of rock salt

You won't have been in Çankırı long before someone is bound to mention the Tuz Mağarası (Salt Cave) to you. With your own car it's a pleasant drive 20 kilometers east of town through rolling open countryside, although the sign pointing south only mentions a factory, so you need to keep your wits about you. Once there, though, you need only leave your details at the gate before driving down a hill and right into an enormous gash in the earth. This is the single largest reserve of rock salt in Turkey and it is thought that it was being exploited as long ago as Hittite times. Today 15 men still work in the mine, which produces 500 tons of salt every day. It's sold all over the country for cooking, although some people locally also work it into bedside lamps and other souvenirs.

It's fairly awe-inspiring to park inside the mine and get out to inspect it. With a constant temperature of 15 degrees Celsius, it's pleasantly cool in comparison with the sweltering heat outside, and one gallery has been kitted out with a small exhibition of rock-salt sculptures by students from the local art school, as well as with reminders of times past in the shape of a battered old landau that once belonged to a mine owner and a stretch of the railway track that used to convey the salt to the entrance, now some one-and-a-half kilometers from the most distant diggings. One rather sad reminder of the past takes the shape of a naturally mummified donkey believed to have fallen through a well into the mine some 250 years ago. The hare in a case above it was placed there recently to keep it company.

Tourism still being in its infancy in Çankırı, there are few good hotels to choose from. Best and most central is the Sim Prestige, which has refurbished rooms on the lower floors, and cheaper, more old-fashioned ones higher up.

WHERE TO STAY:

Çankırı Büyük Otel. Tel.: 0 (376) 213 38 38

Sim Prestige Oteli. Tel.: 0 (376) 213 12 00

HOW TO GET THERE:

There are hourly buses to Çankırı from the Ankara bus station (AŞTİ), although onward connections to Kastamonu are less frequent. Nor do they come into the Çankırı bus station, which means that you will be driven out to meet them. Taxi drivers at the bus station know the way to the Tuz Mağarası.