Şanlıurfa City Tour from Diyarbakır — Göbeklitepe & Harran

Şanlıurfa City Tour from Diyarbakır — Göbeklitepe, Harran & the City of Prophets

Travel into the cradle of civilisation on this full-day Şanlıurfa city tour from Diyarbakır, a private day trip to the world's oldest temple, the beehive houses of Harran and the sacred pools of the "city of prophets". With a professional guide you journey across Upper Mesopotamia, tracing more than twelve thousand years of history, faith and legend.

Highlights of the Şanlıurfa Day Trip

• Göbeklitepe — the oldest known temple in the world, predating Stonehenge and the pyramids.
• Harran — the 22-metre mound, the Grand Mosque, the first Islamic university and conical beehive houses.
• Balıklıgöl (Pool of Abraham) — the sacred carp-filled pool and Ayn Zeliha Lake.
• Cave of Abraham — the site revered as the birthplace of the Prophet Abraham.
• City of Prophets — historic mosques and the covered bazaar of old Şanlıurfa.

Collected from your hotel in Diyarbakır, you set off for Şanlıurfa and begin at Göbeklitepe, the astonishing twelve-thousand-year-old sanctuary that has rewritten the story of early civilisation. You continue to Harran, once a capital of the Umayyads, to see the great mound, the Harran Grand Mosque — the oldest mosque of the Islamic period in Anatolia — the courtyard of the world's first Islamic university, the inner castle, the historic walls and the distinctive conical beehive houses.

Reaching the heart of Şanlıurfa, the city of prophets, you visit the sacred Balıklıgöl and Ayn Zeliha lakes with their carp-filled waters and gardens, the cave revered as the birthplace of the Prophet Abraham, and historic mosques including the Rızvaniye and Mevlid-i Halil, with a tea break at the atmospheric Gümrük Han. After a day steeped in history and spirituality you are transferred back to your hotel in Diyarbakır.