Things to Do in Mersin: Kizkalesi, the Sinkholes and Anamur

--- title: "Mersin travel guide: 300 kilometres of coast, castles, sinkholes and ancient cities" description: "An honest guide to Mersin, Turkey: Tarsus, Kizkalesi and Korykos, the Cennet and Cehennem sinkholes, Uzuncaburc, Silifke, Anamur and Mamure Castle. Real driving times, how many days you need, when to go and what to eat." city: "Mersin" lang: "en" ---

Mersin: one province on paper, a long coastline in practice

The fastest way to understand Mersin is to look at a map. The province runs about 300 kilometres along the Mediterranean, and that single fact governs everything else. At the eastern end there are container cranes, industry and one of Turkey's busiest ports. At the western end, four hours away by road, there are banana plantations and a town that almost looks across at Cyprus. Everything in between is the interesting part: castles on the rocks, enormous holes where the ground collapsed into the caves beneath it, ancient cities sitting directly on the beach, and a colonnaded street at 1,200 metres.

This is not a province you visit from a single base. Mersin city is a working port and behaves like one. It was built to live in, not to tour, and it has no obligation to entertain you. The part that tourism cares about starts west of the city and continues for a very long way. So Mersin suits the traveller who is comfortable being on the road rather than the one hunting for a postcard. For anyone interested in the ancient world, Cilicia is one of the richest and least crowded archaeological regions in the country. A state highway runs straight through the middle of Elaiussa Sebaste, and most days there is nobody there but you.

The mistake almost everyone makes is underestimating the distances. People put Kizkalesi and Anamur in the same day. There are roughly 200 kilometres between them and the road is a winding coastal route that climbs and drops through the mountains, so that is over three hours in one direction. Attempt both in a day and you will spend the whole day in the car and see neither place properly. The rule for planning Mersin is simple: break the coast into segments and give each segment its own day.

Quick answer

Mersin works when you take the coast in pieces from east to west, and exhausts you when you try to run it all from one base.

• Distance warning: from Mersin city it is about 60 km to Kizkalesi, 85 km to Silifke and 230 km to Anamur, which is close to four hours on a winding road. Anamur is a separate trip, not a day trip.
• Time needed: 2 days for Tarsus and the Kizkalesi area, 3 days once you add Silifke and Uzuncaburc, 4 to 5 days if you want Anamur.
• A car is close to essential. Buses run along the D400, but Uzuncaburc, Cambazli and Akgol are not realistic on public transport.
• Where to base: the city for Tarsus, Kizkalesi for the ruins and the sea, Silifke or Anamur for the west.

1. Mersin Marina and the seafront

There is not much to sightsee in the city centre in the conventional sense, and there is no reason for a guide to hide that. Mersin is a port city. Its economy comes from the sea, but its relationship with the sea is work, not display. The waterfront, however, is long, well kept and comes alive in the late afternoon. Around the marina there is a boat basin, a promenade and cafes, and as you walk west the strip turns into a genuinely used city park.

The value here is not the view, it is the rhythm. Families walking in the evening cool, men fishing off the wall, runners, kids on bikes. If you want to experience Mersin as a place people actually live rather than a place people photograph, this is where that happens, and it is the best way to build an appetite before you go looking for tantuni.

Set your expectations correctly. This is not Bodrum or Kusadasi, and nobody here is claiming otherwise. Come to the city, walk the seafront for a couple of hours, have dinner, and head west the next morning. Trying to make the city centre the centre of your trip is simply a misreading of the province.

2. Cleopatra's Gate

At the entrance to Tarsus, marooned in the middle of a boulevard with traffic on both sides, stands a single stone gate. It is one of the gates of ancient Tarsus. The name attaches it to Cleopatra, on the story that she and Mark Antony met in the city here. That connection is not established, and most of what you see today post-dates the period the name suggests.

The reasonable expectation here is ten minutes. The gate is not an impressive structure and the modern city has crowded it from every side. But it is the right place to begin in Tarsus, because it fixes the scale of the ancient city in your head: the spot where you are now sitting in traffic is where you once entered the city.

Everything else in Tarsus is close by. The gate, the well, the shrine and the waterfall are all within a few kilometres of each other and fit comfortably into half a day. Do not treat this as a destination in its own right and build a detour around it. Treat it as stop one on a Tarsus loop.

3. St Paul's Well and monument museum

Tarsus was the birthplace of St Paul. Given this man's part in carrying Christianity out of the Levant and into Anatolia and Europe, that makes this small courtyard rather more than an ordinary well. The well is understood to sit on the site associated with his family's house. Around it, excavation has exposed stone paving and foundations.

What you physically see is modest: a well with a protected mouth, some wall lines, a small display area. The power of the place is contextual rather than visual, which is worth saying plainly. For pilgrims it carries real weight. For everyone else, it is the most concrete evidence available of why Tarsus mattered in the ancient world at all.

Allow twenty minutes to half an hour. Opening hours and entry conditions can change, so verify officially. Because it sits inside the old fabric of Tarsus, you can walk from here to the shrine of Bilal and the old bazaar, and that is by far the most efficient way to do it.

4. Shrine and mosque of Bilal-i Habesi

A few hundred metres from Paul's well, in the narrow streets of old Tarsus, there is a shrine and mosque associated with Bilal, known in Islamic tradition as the first muezzin. As with shrines generally, the historical claim is debated. What is not debated is that people have been visiting this spot for centuries and that it remains a living place of worship rather than an exhibit.

This is where the real argument for Tarsus becomes visible. Within a few hundred metres you have an ancient city gate, the well of a Christian saint, a shrine tied to the earliest years of Islam, and Ottoman mosques. Very few places in Turkey stack their layers this tightly, and Tarsus does it without making any fuss about it at all.

Visit accordingly. Dress modestly, remove your shoes, and stay quiet around prayer times. Fifteen minutes covers the shrine itself, but give the surrounding streets another half hour on foot. That walk is the point.

5. Tarsus waterfall

The Berdan river drops over a wide stone shelf just north of town. It is not tall, but it is broad: the water comes over the entire width of the rock at once and collects in a large pool below. Tea gardens and picnic areas ring the whole thing, and on summer evenings this is where people from Tarsus come to cool off.

Be warned that the flow varies enormously. In spring and after rain it is genuinely powerful. By late summer, with irrigation and evaporation taking their share, what is left can be well below what you were picturing. Do not arrive in August expecting the photograph.

The appeal is not that this is a natural wonder. The appeal is that it is the town's cooling-off spot. Come for tea, sit on the wet rocks, watch a local summer evening happen around you. An hour is right. Find shade, and note that weekends get very busy.

6. Eshab-i Kehf, the Seven Sleepers

On a hillside northwest of Tarsus there is a cave with a substantial visitor complex built around it. The story appears in both the Quran and Christian tradition: young men who took refuge in a cave to escape persecution, slept for centuries, and emerged to find the world entirely changed. Several cities across the region claim the site, and Tarsus is one of them.

Adjust your expectations. This is a pilgrimage site, not a cave tour. The area has been heavily developed, with a mosque and commercial units added, and the cave itself is relatively small. It gets busy, and during religious holidays it gets very busy.

Whether it is worth your time depends entirely on your interest. If you care about the story or about pilgrimage sites, it is an easy addition to a Tarsus day at about fifteen kilometres out of town. If what you want is ancient remains, the same hours are better spent at Elaiussa Sebaste down the coast.

7. Erdemli public beach

Head west out of Mersin city and the coast changes character slowly: the industry stops, the summer housing estates begin. Erdemli sits in the middle of that transition, and its public beach is a good place to see how the province actually uses its sea. It is free, wide, busy and entirely local.

This is not an organised beach club. Do not expect sunbed rows, music or service. What you get is families, tents, tea being brewed, and children going in and out of the water all afternoon. The sea is shallow and stays shallow a long way out, which makes it easy with young kids.

Where it fits: a natural break on the way to Kizkalesi. If you finished Tarsus in the morning and are heading west, an hour in the water here during the hottest part of the day is a sensible use of the trip. It does not deserve a day of its own, but it offers a more honest slice of coastal life than the tourist cove at Kizkalesi does.

8. Akkale

Right on the D400, right on the sea, sitting at the edge of the road, is a group of late antique buildings. There is a large main structure, the remains of a bath, cisterns, and traces running down to the shoreline. Its function is still argued over; a harbour complex or a large coastal estate are the usual readings.

The best thing about Akkale is how easy it is. No ticket booth, no parking fee, no queue. You pull over and walk in. The main building still stands to a serious height, and the fact that it sits directly above the water makes it one of the most photogenic stops on the Cilician coast, which almost nobody seems to know.

Half an hour to forty-five minutes is right. The ground is rocky and uneven, so wear proper shoes. There is no shade, so avoid the middle of the day. Elaiussa Sebaste is only a few kilometres further, and doing the two back to back makes obvious sense.

9. Elaiussa Sebaste

An ancient city spread across both sides of a state highway, and one of the clearest places in Turkey to watch traffic flow through a ruin. It was a significant Cilician city under Rome and Byzantium. Today you can see a theatre, bath buildings, a basilica and a large necropolis running up the slope. Excavation is ongoing.

The startling thing is that it is empty. It is a few kilometres from Kizkalesi, it is on the main road, and most days there are barely a handful of people on the site. The necropolis section is the strongest part: you walk among sarcophagi lined up along the old road, and nobody comes to bother you about anything.

Allow an hour to an hour and a half. The warning is straightforward: there is no shade at all, and on a summer afternoon the site behaves like an oven. Go early morning or late afternoon, carry water and wear a hat. Opening hours and entry conditions can change, so verify officially.

10. Korykos Castle

On the shore of Kizkalesi bay, facing the island castle across the water, is the mainland castle. The two were built as a pair and defended each other. Korykos is the larger, the more ruined, and by far the less photographed of the two. Much of the curtain wall stands, there are church remains and cisterns inside, and on the seaward side the walls run straight down into the water.

Walking in here before you take a boat out to the island is the way to understand the arrangement without paying for anything. From inside Korykos the island castle is directly in front of you and you can measure the gap with your own eyes. How the system worked, and why the water between the two mattered so much, becomes obvious standing here.

The ground is rough, the stones are loose and there are no railings in most places. If you are visiting with children, keep them away from the edges. Forty-five minutes is enough. Entry conditions can change, so verify officially.

11. Kizkalesi

This is the image the whole province is known for: a castle covering the entirety of a small island a couple of hundred metres off the shore. Water surrounds it completely and the walls sit right out to the island's edges, so from the beach it looks like it grew out of the sea. You reach it by boat from the shore, and the crossing is short.

The name comes from a legend: a king shuts his daughter on the island to keep her from a prophecy, and fails, because that is how prophecies work. The same story is told about more than one castle in Turkey, so treat it as a cultural layer rather than a historical one.

The honest notes. Boat times, fares and whether the island is open at all depend on the season and the weather, so verify officially before you count on it. On windy days there may be no crossing. If you do get across, the interior is heavily ruined, there is no shade and the footing is poor. If all you want is the photograph, the shot from the beach is the best one anyway.

12. The Cennet and Cehennem sinkholes

A few kilometres inland from the coast, on the limestone plateau, two enormous pits sit side by side. Both are collapse dolines: the roof of a cave system beneath gave way and left steep-walled, deep voids in the plateau. The scale does not survive photography. Standing at the rim and looking down, full-grown trees on the floor read as shrubs.

You cannot go down into Cehennem. Its walls are effectively vertical and there is no route open to visitors, so you look at it from the platform at the edge. That is not a shortcoming, it is what the thing is. Cennet is the one you can descend, and that is where the substance is.

The two are within walking distance of each other inside the same visitor area. Allow one to two hours. On a summer afternoon the plateau is hot and there is no shade, so come in the morning. Opening hours and entry conditions can change, so verify officially.

13. The cave and chapel at Cennet

A long stair descends to the floor of the Cennet sinkhole, where a small early chapel stands. Behind the chapel the cave continues, which is where the real dark section begins. Inside, humidity is extreme, the rock is permanently wet and sound behaves strangely.

Let us be clear about the stair, because guides tend to skate over it. This is a real climb. There are more than three hundred steps, they are irregular, many are worn smooth and most are damp. Going down is easy. Coming back up is hard work. If you have knee, heart or breathing problems, or you struggle in heat, this descent is not a good idea and there is no shame in staying at the rim. There is shade to rest in at the bottom, but plan on stopping to breathe on the way up.

If you go down, carry water and wear shoes that grip. Access to the inner cave section changes from time to time depending on safety and works, so verify officially. You will spend maybe half an hour at the bottom, but budget an hour for the whole exercise.

14. Asagi Dunya sinkhole

About eight kilometres west of Cennet and Cehennem, another doline in the same karst system. It is a serious size, but the visitor numbers are not remotely comparable. Most tour coaches do not come here, and the place is better for it.

The difference is texture. Cennet and Cehennem are a managed visitor site. This one is rawer, with less infrastructure and fewer platforms, so you see the doline in a more naked state. Standing at the edge without a crowd murmuring behind you makes the scale of the collapse land harder.

Rather than describe the turning, I will say this: use navigation, and expect the last stretch to be poorly maintained. Access and descent conditions vary through the year, so verify officially. Half an hour is enough. Worth it if you want to complete the set of dolines, and worth it if you want to get away from the crowd at the main site.

15. Cambazli church

Inside a village north of Silifke, standing among the houses, is an early basilica. The walls and apse are largely intact, the roof is gone and some of the columns are still in place. Around it there are fields, village houses immediately next door, and usually a tractor.

The appeal is precisely that it has not been turned into a museum. No ticket booth, no guard, almost no signage. You walk through the doorway and you are the only person inside. The number of places in Turkey where you can stand alone inside a fifteen-hundred-year-old building is dropping fast, and Cambazli is still on that list.

Twenty minutes to half an hour. It sits on the road up to Uzuncaburc, so it costs you no detour, which makes it easy to add. When you park in the village, take care not to block the lane. People live here and you are a guest in their street.

16. The theatre at Diokaisareia, Uzuncaburc

Climb about thirty kilometres up from Silifke into the mountains, to around 1,200 metres, and you reach the village of Uzuncaburc. The village is built directly on top of ancient Diokaisareia. The colonnaded street still runs through it, the columns of the temple of Zeus are still standing, and the theatre and monumental gate are folded into the village fabric. The tall tower that gives the village its modern name stands at the northern end.

Two things separate this from the other Cilician sites. The first is altitude: while the coast is at thirty-five degrees, there is a cool wind up here and walking around is a pleasure rather than a trial. The second is the mixing. The ruins have not been fenced into a site. Someone's house abuts an ancient column and there are chickens at the foot of the temple.

Allow half a day including the drive. The road is winding but paved and fine in a normal car. Leave the coast in the morning and do not schedule the return into the evening. Opening hours and entry conditions can change, so verify officially.

17. Silifke Castle

On the hill above Silifke, looking down on the Goksu river and the plain, sits a Byzantine castle. It has an oval plan, long and narrow; the towers partly survive and some still have their vaults. You can drive right up to it, which makes it the least strenuous castle in the province.

Let us be straight: the castle itself is not as impressive as Mamure. The reason to come up here is the view. From the top you get the Goksu cutting through the plain on its way to the sea, the roofs of Silifke below, and the Taurus slopes behind, all in one frame. Why the town is exactly where it is, and why the crossing point of that river has been controlled for thousands of years, explains itself from up here in about four seconds.

Forty-five minutes is enough. Come near sunset, when the light works well across the plain. It is open ground and the wind can be strong. It fits easily into the same half day as the other stops in Silifke, particularly the old river bridge.

18. Akgol

One of the shallow lagoons inside the Goksu delta, and the most serious piece of nature in the province. The delta is an important wetland on the migration routes, and flamingos, jungle cats and sea turtles all share the same system. Akgol is the most accessible part of it for birdwatching.

Set your expectations. This is not a park. The roads are dirt, signage is thin, there is no shade, and in summer the insects are a genuine problem. What you see depends heavily on the season: winter and the spring passage are far and away the best for bird numbers, and midsummer is the flattest.

If you do not have binoculars, do not come. That is the whole test. If you do have them, two hours goes quickly. Do not push a low car on the dirt roads, which deteriorate after rain. It is a short distance from Silifke, so an early start pairs it with the castle in one day.

19. Bogsak cove

West of Silifke on the D400 coast road, a cove with a small island sitting in front of it. The water is clear, the cove is sheltered, and the crowd does not compare to Kizkalesi. There are traces of Byzantine settlement on the island, and you can pick out the ruins from the shore.

Its function is clear enough: this is a swimming stop. It is not quite halfway to Anamur, but it is a natural break point as you push west. Getting out of the car and into the water for an hour, then driving the rest less tired, is a tactic that genuinely works on that long coastal road.

Facilities are limited. Outside the season much of it will be shut, so bring your own water and your own shade. The turnings down from the highway to the cove are narrow, so slow down early. This does not need a day. It needs an hour on the way past, which is exactly the right way to use it.

20. Mamure Castle

Approaching Anamur from the east, it appears at the edge of the road, right on the sea, and it stops the conversation in the car. Mamure is one of the best-preserved castles on the Mediterranean coast. Something like thirty-nine towers and bastions are linked by broad ramparts; inside there are three separate courtyards, a mosque, the remains of a bath and a lighthouse. The moat around it survives too.

It began under the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia and was extended in turn by the Seljuks, the Karamanids and the Ottomans. So it is not the castle of one period, it is a building that kept being added to for centuries. Its relationship with the sea is remarkable: one face of the walls looks directly onto the beach.

If you only see one thing in the whole province, see this. Allow an hour to an hour and a half. Restoration means sections are closed from time to time and entry conditions change, so verify officially. The stairs and ramparts have no railings, so take care with children.

21. Anamur beach

Anamur's beach is long, open and largely local. This is close to the southernmost point of mainland Turkey, which has practical consequences: the warm weather arrives early and the sea stays warm deep into autumn. The swimming season here is noticeably longer than at the eastern end of the province.

It is not a developed tourist strip. What is there is a long band of sand, banana greenhouses behind it, and the town itself. Because it faces open sea there can be surf even in summer, and in some stretches you want to pay attention to the current. If you are swimming with children, pick a sheltered section and stay in it.

That is the logic of Anamur in general. If you have driven four hours to get here, arriving, looking at the castle and turning around makes no sense. Stay a night, walk the beach in the evening, go to Anamurium in the morning. Trying to do Anamur as a day trip is precisely the mistake this guide has been warning about from the start.

22. Anamurium

A few kilometres west of Anamur town, an ancient city spread across an entire slope running down to the sea. The scale is the surprise: baths, a theatre, an odeon, churches, streets, and a huge necropolis covering the hillside from top to bottom. Parts of it still stand two storeys high, and the city runs right down onto the beach.

The necropolis is what makes Anamurium unusual. Hundreds of tomb buildings, some of which you can walk into, sit above the city like a second town for the dead. Moving between them is a strange experience: burial chambers on one side, the Mediterranean on the other, and no barrier between you and either of them.

The site is large, there is no shade and the ground is rocky. Allow at least two hours, go early morning or late afternoon, and carry more water than you think you need. The slope is steep, so proper shoes matter. Opening hours and entry conditions can change, so verify officially. If you have come as far as Anamur, this is not optional.

Distances and how many days

Everything about planning Mersin depends on distance, and any plan built without the numbers falls apart on day one. Measuring from the city centre, along the D400 coast road, the approximate figures are: Tarsus 30 km, Erdemli 40 km, Kizkalesi 60 km, Silifke 85 km, Aydincik 160 km, Anamur 230 km. The kilometres look manageable. The times do not follow them. Mersin to Kizkalesi is about an hour, Silifke about an hour and a half, and Anamur close to four hours. The gap comes from the character of the road: west of Silifke the coast road leans into the mountain, it is continuous bends and gradients, and average speed drops hard.

The sentence people keep constructing is "Kizkalesi in the morning, Anamur in the afternoon." There are 170 kilometres and over three hours of curves between those two clauses. Do it and you arrive at Anamur in late afternoon, rush Mamure in half an hour, never make Anamurium at all, and get back around midnight having enjoyed none of it. The same error runs in reverse: people based in Anamur who add Tarsus as a day trip spend eight hours of the day in a car seat.

Here is what actually works. With two days: day one Tarsus and the city, day two Erdemli, Akkale, Elaiussa Sebaste, Korykos and Kizkalesi. With three days, give day three to the Cennet and Cehennem sinkholes, Cambazli, Uzuncaburc and Silifke Castle, and understand that this day is full, so start early. With four or five days, add Anamur and sleep there: swim at Bogsak on the way, finish with Mamure, then do Anamurium the next morning before you drive back.

Choice of base follows from this. The city centre is right for Tarsus, but commuting from it every day once you are past Kizkalesi is punishing. Kizkalesi sits in the middle of the ruins and the sinkholes and is the sensible centre of a three-day trip. Silifke works if you are pushing west or up to Uzuncaburc. Anamur is its own chapter: treat it as a destination, not a stop.

Getting there

For flights, the practical answer is Adana Sakirpasa Airport. Mersin has no airport of its own, and Adana is roughly 70 kilometres from the city centre with a good motorway link, so the transfer runs about an hour. From abroad you will usually need a domestic connection through Istanbul or Ankara. If your trip is weighted towards Anamur, coming via Antalya is an option, though the coast road from that side is long as well.

A car is close to essential, and there is no point softening that. Buses and minibuses serve the points on the D400, meaning Erdemli, Kizkalesi, Silifke and Anamur, and that corridor is frequent and easy. The problem is everything off it. Uzuncaburc, Cambazli, the Asagi Dunya sinkhole and Akgol are either impossible or absurdly slow without a car. Roughly a third of the pins in this guide are effectively unreachable on public transport.

Most people pick the car up at Adana airport. The coast road is paved and well maintained, but the number of bends increases sharply west of Silifke. Avoid driving that section at night if you can: lighting is sparse, the road is narrow, and in summer you have both oncoming traffic and heavy lorries to deal with. Fuel is adequate along the D400, but fill up before you head inland, for example before the climb to Uzuncaburc.

If you have to come without a car, shrink the plan and be honest about it. Stay in Mersin, bus to Tarsus, then move to Kizkalesi for two nights. From Kizkalesi you can walk to Korykos and reach Elaiussa Sebaste easily, and the sinkholes are doable by local tour or taxi. Cut Uzuncaburc and Anamur. Not seeing something is better than half seeing it.

When to go

Summer is hot, and there is no need to play with the numbers: in July and August the coast comfortably hits thirty-five degrees, humidity is high, and none of the archaeological sites have shade. Attempting Elaiussa Sebaste or Anamurium at midday in August is a serious mistake, not a minor discomfort. If you come in midsummer, split the day: ruins until nine in the morning, sea at midday, ruins again after five.

Against that, the swimming season is long. The sea is comfortable from late May to late October, and at the Anamur end that window is wider still. October may be the best-balanced month in the province: still warm, the sea heated through by the whole summer, the crowds gone and the inland sites pleasant again.

Spring is the clear winner for the ruins. In April and May the plateau is green, the temperature suits walking, Uzuncaburc is cool and the Goksu delta is busy with birds. Going down and up the Cennet stair in April and doing the same thing in August are two entirely different activities. If ancient cities are your priority, take spring. If the sea is your priority, take September and October.

Winter is quiet but not useless. The coast is mild, there is no snow, and the city carries on with its normal life. Some of the tourist infrastructure closes, though, particularly the boats at Kizkalesi and the seasonal businesses. Uzuncaburc is high enough to be cold and occasionally snowy. In winter Tarsus, the city and Mamure all work well; confirm boat and cave access in advance, and verify officially.

What to eat

Tantuni is the city's signature and the shortest route into understanding the place. Finely chopped meat is cooked on a wide flat pan with water and fat, spiced, then rolled into lavash or a wrap with parsley, onion and sumac. What separates it from ordinary street meat is the method: it is not fried, it is cooked down until the water goes and the flavour concentrates. There are parts of the city where the tantuni shops cluster, particularly around the bazaar and the side streets running down to the sea. The places with a queue in the evening are generally the good ones, and here that heuristic actually holds.

Cezerye is the sweet side. It is made from carrot, boiled down with sugar until it thickens, studded with walnut or pistachio, then rolled in coconut. The texture is chewy, the colour is deep, and it is very sweet indeed: more than one cube in a sitting is a challenge. If you take one thing home from Mersin, this is the correct choice, because it keeps well and it is genuinely local rather than generically Turkish. The confectioners cluster around the bazaar.

Kerebic is the least known and the most characteristic of the three. Small dumplings of semolina dough filled with walnut, eaten with a white foam called coven spooned over the top. Coven comes from a plant root that foams when it is whipped, and the effect is a light, faintly bitter cream that has no real equivalent elsewhere. The taste is unfamiliar, which is exactly why it is worth ordering. You find it at sweet shops and breakfast places.

Two more things. First, citrus: this is one of Turkey's biggest citrus-growing provinces, and in winter oranges, mandarins and lemons are everywhere and cheap, even freshly squeezed. Second, Anamur bananas. This is the region where Turkey actually grows bananas, and the local fruit is noticeably smaller, darker and denser than the imported kind. Roadside stalls sell them on the way to Anamur, and the difference is real rather than marketing.

Frequently asked questions

**How do you get to Kizkalesi, and do the boats always run?** Boats go out to the island from the shore and the crossing is short. But they run according to season and weather: in winter and on windy days there may be no service at all. Fares and times vary, so verify officially before you build your day around it. Korykos Castle on the mainland can be visited from the shore in any conditions.

**Can you do Anamur as a day trip from Mersin?** Technically yes, practically no. It is close to four hours each way, so eight hours of the day are spent driving. That leaves a couple of hours for Mamure and Anamurium, and neither one rewards being rushed. If you are going to Anamur, stay at least one night.

**How many days do I need?** One day for Tarsus and the city, one for the ruins around Kizkalesi, one for the sinkholes and Uzuncaburc, so three days for the core. Add Anamur and you are at four or five. Go below three and you have to drop either the coast or the interior completely.

**How much can I see without a car?** About two thirds. Tarsus, Erdemli, Kizkalesi, Korykos, Elaiussa Sebaste, Silifke and Anamur are all on the D400 and reachable by bus. Uzuncaburc, Cambazli, the Asagi Dunya sinkhole and Akgol realistically need a car. Without one, base yourself at Kizkalesi and narrow the plan to match.

**Is the descent into the Cennet sinkhole difficult?** Yes, it is a real climb. More than three hundred irregular steps, wet and slippery stone, and a tiring return. It is not suitable if you have knee, heart or breathing problems, or if you struggle in heat. Shoes with grip and water are both necessary. Cehennem cannot be entered at all; you view it from the rim.

**What is the best season?** April and May for the ruins, when the weather suits walking and the shadeless sites are bearable. September and October for the sea, when the water is at its warmest and the crowds have gone. July and August are hot and humid, and force you to compress sightseeing into early morning and late afternoon.