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Eastern Anatolia & Ancient Kingdoms
5 Nights | 3 Mardin · 1 Van · 1 Kars — honey-colored limestone, Akdamar Island and the haunting ruins of Ani.
Turkey / Collection
The Monasteries of Tur Abdin
The Syriac Orthodox heartland on the plateau east of Mardin, where Aramaic is still sung in monasteries founded in the fourth century.
The road south from Mardin cuts through a plateau that flattens toward the Syrian frontier. On either side, the land opens into bare, ochre hills scored by dry valleys. This is Tur Abdin, the Mountain of the Servants, a region that has sheltered Syriac Christian monasticism since the fourth century. The landscape is austere, treeless, and exposed to the wind—but the cliffs are full of hollows, and into those hollows, generations of monks carved their places of worship.
Monastic Life in Stone
The monasteries of Tur Abdin rise from the rock in layers of grey limestone and black basalt. Some are compact cave complexes; others spread across hilltops as fortified rectangles with bell towers and arcaded cloisters. Deyrulzafaran, the largest, occupies a hillock south of Gülgöze. Its central church sits beneath a dome painted deep ochre, and the surrounding cells—built from cut stone laid in regular courses—step down the slope in orderly rows. The monastery complex grew over centuries: a fourth-century church, a sixth-century enlargement, a ninth-century refectory. The underground chambers predate the monastery entirely, carved when this was a pagan temple to the sun.
Further east, Mor Gabriel stands on a low ridge above the village of Deyrulumut. Its walls enclose a courtyard of whitewashed stone, and the bell tower rises above the gate in a simple, unadorned shaft. The church within contains frescoes from the ninth or tenth century—Christ enthroned between angels, the Virgin and Child in the apse. Several smaller monasteries and churches dot the surrounding valleys, some still in use, others reduced to ruins.
A Landscape of Enduring Faith
The area carries a particular weight in the late afternoon. The limestone blazes amber as the sun drops, and the call to prayer—sometimes from a minaret, sometimes from a church tower—crosses the valleys. Syriac is still spoken here, the liturgical language unchanged in form since the medieval period. Priests in black cassocks move between the monasteries, maintaining traditions that predate the Ottoman Empire.
Between the monasteries, the villages are small and quiet. Stone houses cluster on hillsides. An elderly man tends goats. The roads are unpaved in places, and the nearest town with services is an hour's drive north. This isolation has preserved the region through centuries of change. The churches and monasteries remain largely as they were—built by the same communities who still tend them, set in a landscape that has not shifted in any meaningful way.
Walking the Plateau
Moving on foot between the monasteries reveals details the road obscures. Cave entrances pock the cliff faces at eye level, their openings framed by rough arches. Carved crosses mark the entrances to hermit cells. In places, the rock has been smoothed and dressed to form walls and arches, the quarry's geometry respected rather than forced. The silence is deep and the sky wide. Below, the irrigated patches around the villages mark where the water table rises close to the surface—gardens and orchards, mulberry trees, the smell of cooking fires in the evening air.
Places in this group
Tours that visit The Monasteries of Tur Abdin
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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.
