Diyarbakir Fortress and Hevsel Gardens

This site covers a lot of ground and is hard to get a feel for on your own — just the walls of the city themselves are the 2nd widest and longest complete defensive walls (after only the Great Wall of China)! However, I found that visiting the Diyarbakir Archeology Museum first gave great contextualization for the rest of the city. Price is 3 euros for foreigners in Spring 2025.

Across from the museum, you can walk along a portion of the wall by climbing some steep stairs to reach the top. You can also get a view of the Hevsel gardens in the distance. This was a popular activity and you could see many young people taking pictures of the view. The WHS itself, without the museum, is left unexplained and the walls in particular have a lot of graffiti/vandalism. Walking along the walls, I found a lot of names etched in the bricks, spray paint, etc. Overall, I think the site has a ways to go in terms of restoration, as well as accessibility of information.

Arriving from Zerzevan South of town, I started my visit to Diyarbakir at the Ten-Eyed-Bridge. It's located a few kilometers down river from the old city and offers great initial views of the city. The walls sitting high on a hill look massive from afar and must have impressed any traveler (or army) arriving as I did from the South.

I continued my walk along the Tigris river. As mentioned by Stanislaw, you can't walk along the river, but have to follow the main road. Before entering the city at the Mardin gate, I briefly visited Hevsel Gardens. I get the idea of communal garden, but felt this would be better served as intangible heritage. There really is nothing historic to see and the local peasants were probably wondering what I was looking for.

After dropping my luggage at my hotel, I walked along most of the circumference of the walls. I was expecting being able to walk on the walls like in Lugo or Avila. This is only possible at some places. In comparison, I found both Avila as well as Lugo better preserved. And walking on the walls had me worried as there are no rails and the walls are not always in best shape. Highlight of the fortification are the Diyarbakır Fortress and the South Western corner.

The city itself offers more sites. To me the two best site were the Great Mosque and the ruin of the St. George Church. The Great Mosque …

I visited Diyarbakir in Spring 2021 after Sanliurfa and before heading towards Van lake and spent 2 nights and 3 days here. When planning my road trip loop I had marked this area as the one I was to be most careful in based on some rough experiences some travellers went through here. It's close proximity to conflict stricken countries such as Syria and Iraq, plus being the unofficial capital of Turkish Kurdistan, all seem to contribute enough to being a bit more careful in principle.

During our visit though, we encountered no problems whatsoever and the locals were really friendly and proud that two Western tourists made an extra effort to visit their city notwithstanding its reputation and the COVID-19 travel restrictions. Due to the COVID-19 travel restrictions imposed on most locals, such as the ban on inter-state travel, when we visited most if not all refugees or migrants from neighboring countries were either pushed back or living in tent communities in the fields on the outskirts of the city. Police and military forces are always on the alert here, so expect numerous checkpoints not only on the way to/from the city but also within different districts within the city walls. Together with the CCTV cameras installed literally everywhere, the city (especially inside the area inside and near the city walls) felt extra safe at all times.

The city walls have gone through constant turmoil or acts of vandalism, but the UNESCO inscription seems to have helped …

Visited April 2018. Diyarbakır is the unofficial capital of Turkish Kurdistan. The city is really big and still booming thanks to the GAP Project, but the part interesting for tourists is located on its eastern outskirts, closer to the Tigris River. The Kurdish people call the city Amida as it was named two thousand years ago.

I have very mixed feelings about this inscription that was put into WH List 2015 after ICOMOS referral. Surely it is not my favourite WHS in Turkey although I have to admit that the inscribed part has a kind of a charm… There are 6 components which constitute one rather big unity: Içkale with Amida Mound, City Walls, Hevsel Gardens, Ten-Eyed Bridge, Natural water resources, Tigris River Valley.

1. Tigris River Valley. It is hard to believe that this river (locally called Dicle) together with Euphrates gave birth to Mesopotamian civilization. Now Tigris is just a 30-meter wide, shallow and dirty. Only eastern bank of the river has a walkable path, the one on the citadel site is partially in the private hands so wired fences are not uncommon. 2. Natural water resources are the most difficult to find. Just west of the outer walls, between Urfa and Mardin gates, after a moment of wandering around and asking locals, you can see Anzele Spring. Now it looks like a small pool, some of it hidden in the tunnel. Children are playing around, 3. Ten-Eyed Bridge is located around 3 km south of the Mardin …