I want to tell you about a trip to Turkish Mardin, which many guidebooks often call a must have place in Eastern Turkey..
Mardin 2023
I’ll run ahead – purposefully going from afar to see Mardin alone does not make sense, given that the city is located far from Istanbul (~1500 km) and Antalya (~1200 km). I advise you to combine your visit with other interesting places in this region, at least with the ancient underground city of Dara 34 km away (Dara Antik Su Sarnıçları) and the flooded city of Hasankeyf 112 km away (Hasankeyf).
Mardin is not included in the list of UNESCO Sites, as many guidebooks claim.
As soon as they do not call Mardin on the Web, and the ancient city that descended from the pages of the book of fairy tales “One Thousand and One Nights” and an open-air museum. In practice, it’s not quite like that. The architectural appearance of the city suffers from chaotic disfiguring buildings, it is quite dirty and noisy here. In addition, the 3,000-year-old Mardin Castle, towering on a hilltop above the city, is in a deplorable state and is closed to the public, there is a strategic point of the Turkish army.
2 days are enough to visit Mardin, in fact, that’s how most tourists come here. On weekends and holidays, the cost of staying in hotels is higher, there are more people, and the main street turns into a huge traffic jam. It is better to come here on weekdays.
Take earplugs with you if you like to sleep in silence. The city is very noisy and there is a high probability that you will be woken up by music, the screams of local tourists or a rumbling car. Dress according to the weather, we were at the very beginning of May – it was cold in the evening – we put on down jackets and hats.