The next morning we spent roaming around Sinop. It’s quite a large town, but easy to walk around. We visited the main mosque, dating back to about the 1400’s, and we visited the ancient ramparts overlooking the sea. But there wasn’t much else to do – the beaches are supposedly good but they are out-of-town and we didn’t get to see them. It was soon time to leave and this time on a regular (large) bus, bound for Amasya.
Exploring Sinop
We were leaving the Black Sea region for a while – Amasya is an inland Anatolian town, and we were heading there as I had read lots of good things about it. We traveled through the afternoon, arriving in Amasya towards evening.
We had booked into the Ilk Pansiyon – highly rated in a number of guidebooks. We found it quickly but were horrified to see that it had neither air conditioning nor fans, and the temperature was close to 40 degrees (100 F). It didn’t help that the manager on duty didn’t speak a word of English or French or German or Spanish – our backup languages which we speak fairly to poorly). The room was quaint – furnished in a similar way to our Pansiyon in Safranbolu, but the heat was unbearable.
We didn’t want to spend too long in the heat of the hotel room and so we explored the streets. We found a park with a playground and a tea garden and the kids had a great time on the jumpy castle. Amasya is an incredibly interesting town – quite conservative, with lots pf mosques. In addition there is a citadel high up on the hill, ancient tombs carved into the rocks above the city and a river running through it. Nightfall in the town was fun – the whole place is illuminated – the river, the tombs, everything, and thousands of people walked everywhere.The night in our hotel was insufferable – it finally got cooler in the early hours of the morning, but even before breakfast I was up and hunting for another place to stay.
PS These days I am planning great family trips to Turkey. For more info click here.
