Yesilirmak Embankment

The river divides Amasya in two and flows through a narrow gorge, so that the whole town is built along the water as two strands of embankment. The northern bank is taken up by a row of Ottoman wooden mansions of the nineteenth century: whitewashed facades, dark timber framing, overhanging cumba bay windows reflected in the water. Some of the houses have been restored and work as hotels and coffee houses, others are open as museums with their old domestic interiors reconstructed. Several stone bridges are thrown across the river, the oldest of them assigned to Seljuk times, though the present masonry is later. In the evening the embankments, the bridges and the riverbed are floodlit, and the colour changes, so the water turns now green, now blue - a debatable device, but one that has made the town recognisable in photographs. It is customary to stroll here after sunset, when the heat drops; the river is not wide, and both banks can be seen right across.

Address

Habibi Sokak, Pirinççi Mahallesi

On the map