Sanliurfa: Urfa The Glorious

When I arrived in Urfa, I realized that this trip would be special.

The city was my third stop in as many days and the first place I planned to linger. I wanted to take a handful of day trips, and I’d heard only good things about Urfa. Still, I wasn’t expecting to be immediately charmed.

Urfa was unlike any city I’d been to in Turkey, with its heavy Middle Eastern influence. It was still Turkey, undoubtedly, but there was a sheen of foreignness that made it possible to view the city with fresh eyes. I walked through the crowded market street and caught a whiff of the region’s famous Urfa peppers and remembered how the smells of Istanbul fascinated me so deeply when I first visited in 2008. The white winding back streets of the Old City reminded me of Jerusalem and Turkish Nicosia. Women walked by with purple headscarves and men with well-worn faces chatted in Kurdish and bartered over spices and nuts. There was such energy in the city center, and I was swept up by it.

After living in Istanbul, a city infamous for its lack of central and accessible green space, I was elated to find that Urfa’s city center also holds a large and sprawling park, complete with a stream that cuts straight through. By early evening, when the intense daytime heat began to dissipate, the park was swarmed with people of all ages enjoying the cool greenery. It’s a perfect place to stroll over bridges, sip a cup of tea, or sit on the grass and eat baklava.

The park is adjacent to two of Urfa’s main tourist attractions: The Pool of Sacred Fish and the cave where Abraham was born.

The Pool of Sacred Fish, or Balikligol, is one of the most famous places in Urfa, and the centerpiece of the Old City. The legend is that King Nimord was going to set fire to Abraham, but God transformed the fire into water and the coals into fish. Seeing a white fish means you will go to heaven. Eating the fish of the holy pool will cause you to go blind. (We didn’t test this.)

Legend aside, it’s a terrific place for people-watching and fish-watching. Tourists and locals alike are drawn to Balikligol, and the fish swim in swarms all over the pool. It’s a splendid place.

Abraham’s cave is across the park from Balikligol, attached to a mosque. Men and women have separate entrances, so I only saw a small part of the cave—the woman’s section was small and cool and rather crowded. I was more taken with the beautiful mosque courtyard and the mountain that towers above it, especially at the golden sunset hour.

Since 1984, the full name of the city has been Sanliurfa: Glorious Urfa. Though colloquially it’s still called by its shorter name, the longer name is true. Urfa IS glorious and nothing like what I expected. It’s cool winding Old City streets, green and lush parks, spice-fragranced markets and collection of legends was the perfect place to rediscover why I was ever drawn to Turkey in the first place.