MARDIN & MIDYAT

With its minarets poking out of a labyrinth of lanes, its castle dominating the old city, and its honey-colored stone houses clinging to the hillside, Mardin emerges like a phoenix from the sun-roasted Mesopotamian plains.  As a melting pot of Kurdish, Yezidi, Christian, and Syrian cultures, it also boasts a fascinating cultural mix.  Human settlement began here before 4500 BCE, and today the area constitutes a strategic location, with its rocky mountain overlooking the plains of northern Syria.

The Mardin Museum houses a fantastic archeological collection, with pottery, seals, coins, lamps, figurines, teardrop bottles, and jewelry dating from the Bronze Age through the Ottoman Empire.  Mardin is also home to several historically significant mosques, monasteries, churches, tombs, castles, and madrasahs, and you will be amazed at the city’s rich history and magnificence.  Mardin is itself something of an open-air museum, its complex architecture richly inflected by different civilizations, from the Subari and Sumer to the Persian, Byzantine, Arab, and Ottoman.  Many Mardin homes preserve old styles of carving, and are sheltered from the street by walls reaching four meters in height.  While the historical and religious sights of the city will amaze you, delicious local cuisine and handicrafts also await in Mardin.