5 Nights / 6 Days
Eastern Anatolia & Ancient Kingdoms
5 Nights | 3 Mardin · 1 Van · 1 Kars — honey-colored limestone, Akdamar Island and the haunting ruins of Ani.
Turkey / City
Diyarbakır
Ancient walls, mesir-dusted kebabs and tea overlooking the Tigris: Diyarbakır is southeast Türkiye's most compelling city, layered with Armenian, Kurdish, Ottoman and early Islamic history.
Also part of Upper Mesopotamia
Diyarbakır sits on a basalt plateau above the Tigris River in Türkiye's southeast, its black-walled Old City one of the most atmospheric urban landscapes in the country. The city has been a crossroads of civilisations for millennia — Hurrian, Assyrian, Roman, Byzantine, Armenian, Seljuk, Ottoman — and its stones still carry that weight.
The Walls of Diyarbakır
The city's most defining feature is its continuous circuit of ancient walls, stretching roughly five kilometres and built on foundations laid by the Romans in the third century. Basalt blocks form a massive rampart punctuated by deep-gated entrances, each named after the trade or direction it served. You can walk the full perimeter, passing watchtowers restored by successive empires and looking down over the tiled rooftops and narrow lanes of the old quarter within. At certain points the walls reach ten metres or more in height, and the dark stone absorbs the afternoon heat in a way that makes the ramparts a different experience at dawn and dusk.
The Old City and its Mosques
Inside the walls, the street plan is medieval in its logic — a warren of lanes that once organised neighbourhoods by craft or faith. The Great Mosque of Diyarbakır, known as the Ulu Cami, dates to the Seljuk period with elements from later centuries layered into its fabric. Nearby, the Hz-i Süleyman Mosque occupies the site of a much earlier church, and fragments of Armenian architectural detail are embedded in walls throughout the quarter. Tea gardens occupy quiet courtyards where the noise of the surrounding streets drops away entirely.
Heartsürme and the Tigris
The city takes its name from the medieval fortress of Amid, once a powerful Armenian capital and the seat of a Catholicos. The historic Tigris promenade here — called the Hevsel Gardens — was historically a green belt between the city and the river, a space of orchards and water channels now protected as a cultural landscape. Strolling toward the river at the eastern edge of the old walls, you move from stone and shade into open ground where the Tigris runs wide and slow, its banks lined with tea houses and weekend crowds.
Food and the Market
Diyarbakır's cuisine reflects its location at the convergence of Anatolian, Kurdish and Mesopotamian traditions. The city's distinctive kebabs are seasoned with a saffron-based spice paste called mesir, and the local protein is lamb — grilled, stewed, or slow-cooked. The covered bazaar runs through several interconnected halls, selling spices, copperware, dried legumes and sesame sweets. On a weekday morning the market is unhurried, and the scent of freshly roasted coffee and dried lime drifts between the stalls.
On the map
Find it on the map
- Diyarbakır City
Also around here
Tours that visit Diyarbakır
6 Nights / 7 Days
From Fairy Chimneys to Mesopotamia
6 Nights | 3 Cappadocia · 1 Gaziantep · 1 Şanlıurfa · 1 Diyarbakır — surreal landscapes and the cradle of civilization.
8 Nights / 9 Days
From Mesopotamia to the Caucasus
8 Nights | 1 Gaziantep · 1 Şanlıurfa · 1 Diyarbakır · 3 Mardin · 1 Van · 1 Kars — Göbeklitepe, Mardin and the haunting ruins of Ani.
3 Nights / 4 Days
Mesopotamia & Southeastern Turkey
3 Nights | 1 Gaziantep · 1 Şanlıurfa · 1 Diyarbakır — Göbeklitepe, Mount Nemrut and the cradle of civilization.
11 Nights / 12 Days
The Ultimate Eastern Turkey Expedition
11 Nights | 3 Cappadocia · 1 Gaziantep · 1 Şanlıurfa · 1 Diyarbakır · 3 Mardin · 1 Van · 1 Kars — fairy chimneys, Mount Nemrut, Mardin and the haunting ruins of Ani.
14 Nights / 15 Days
The Ultimate Journey Across Turkey
3 Nights Istanbul | 3 Nights Cappadocia | 1 Night Gaziantep | 1 Night Sanliurfa | 1 Night Diyarbakir | 3 Nights Mardin | 1 Night Van | 1 Night Kars
9 Nights / 10 Days
Turkey's Grand Cultural Journey
9 Nights | 3 Istanbul · 3 Cappadocia · 1 Gaziantep · 1 Şanlıurfa · 1 Diyarbakır — imperial capitals, surreal landscapes and the cradle of civilization.
Good to know
Before you book you should know
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Is this trip right for you?
Our groups are capped at eight travellers, which is about a third of what the industry calls a small group. Eight people share one vehicle, one table at dinner and one guide's attention, and the day can change on the road without anybody being left behind. If you are looking for a coach, a fixed script and a microphone, this is not that.
Most days involve real walking, often on ground that was laid two thousand years before walking shoes: marble worn smooth, cobbles, uneven steps and long site paths with little shade. Bring shoes you can spend a morning in.
Some days move between regions and are largely a drive, with stops along the way. Summers are hot — well over 35°C inland — and winters are colder than most people expect, so layers, a hat and sunscreen earn their place in the bag whatever the month.
How demanding a particular trip is, is written on the trip itself: the physical rating in the header, and the day-by-day itinerary above.
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Rooms, and travelling on your own
Trip prices are per person, sharing a twin room. Each traveller picks their own room while booking, so a party can mix the three:
- Twin share — two single beds, shared with someone you are travelling with or with a traveller of the same gender.
- Travelling as a couple — one double room.
- Individual room — a room of your own, for a single supplement on top of the trip price. Availability is limited, and the supplement for a given date is shown next to the option when you book.
Solo travellers are welcome on every departure, and most of our groups have one or two aboard.
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Accommodation
The hotels named in an itinerary are a guideline rather than a guarantee. Where one is full, or has dropped below the standard we booked it for, we substitute a property of a similar standard in the same area — we would rather change the hotel than the trip.
Check-in is usually mid-afternoon. If you arrive early we will ask for the room, but no hotel can promise one before its own check-in time; luggage can normally be left at reception in the meantime. If you want the room from the night before, ask us and we will add the extra night to your booking.
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Passports, visas and insurance
Entry requirements depend on your nationality and change without much notice, so the only reliable source is the official one: the government of the country you are travelling to, and your own foreign ministry's travel advice. Check both before you book a flight.
Many countries ask for a passport valid for at least six months beyond your travel dates, and for blank pages. It is worth looking at yours now rather than at the airport.
We ask every traveller to carry travel insurance covering medical treatment and repatriation, and we would strongly encourage cover for cancellation and for your luggage as well.
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Your departure is guaranteed — the day can change
Once a departure is on the calendar it runs. We do not cancel a trip for want of a minimum number of bookings, so a booked date is one you can plan flights and leave around.
What can move is the shape of a day. Museums and archaeological sites change their hours, roads close, weather turns, a local holiday lands in the middle of the week. Where that happens your guide reorders the day, or swaps a stop for one of the same weight, and tells you why. Changes to a booked itinerary are covered by our Booking Terms & Conditions.
