Before the table, after the table
Traveller’s Route
In the footsteps of Evliya Çelebi: the stories that live in the stone and timber of Mudurnu. A walk that starts at 7 Kapı, passes seven stops and returns to the table — watch it on the map or follow it on your phone.
Read how Ibn Battuta reached Mudurnu in the winter of 1334Loading the map…
About 750 m · 39 min · 7 stops
Mudurnu Clock Tower: an optional short climb of ~25 m off the bazaar path (dashed on the map).
- 7 Kapı (start and finish)
- I. Mudurnu Clock Tower — 40 m
- II. The Arasta and the Ahi Museum — 160 m
- III. Pertev Naili Boratav Culture House — 280 m
- IV. Yıldırım Bayezid Complex — 330 m
- V. Armutçular Mansion — 470 m
- VI. Kanuni Sultan Süleyman Mosque — 490 m
- VII. Yıldırım Bayezid Bath-house — 640 m
1890–91 · stone tower 1904–05
Mudurnu Clock Tower
On the slope east of the bazaar: a 12-metre tower first built of wood in 1890–91 and rebuilt in stone after a fire in 1900. A short climb rewarded with a view over the town.
Explore this stopThe Ahi guild tradition · bazaar rebuilt after 1906
The Arasta and the Ahi Museum
The historic bazaar that 7 Kapı itself belongs to: rebuilt on a grid after the fire of 1906, it is the heart of the Ahi guild town, where the craftsmen’s prayer is still said on Fridays.
Explore this stopFormer district governor’s office · now a culture house
Pertev Naili Boratav Culture House
In the arasta, a building whose ground floor was once the women’s prison and upper floor the district governor’s office; today a small culture house keeping alive the memory of the folklorist Pertev Naili Boratav and his father, District Governor Abdurrahman Nail Bey.
Explore this stop14th century · Early Ottoman
Yıldırım Bayezid Complex
In the heart of Mudurnu, the complex built by Bayezid I while still a prince: with its surviving mosque and bath-house, one of the most important building groups of the early Ottoman period.
Explore this stop1860 · A Mudurnu mansion
Armutçular Mansion
One of the most ornate of Mudurnu’s mansions, with a richly decorated wooden façade: built in 1860, three storeys, 27 rooms. Privately owned; it can be seen from outside only.
Explore this stop16th century · traditionally 1546
Kanuni Sultan Süleyman Mosque
A mosque traditionally held to have been built on the order of Süleyman the Magnificent, with thick stone walls and a decorated wooden ceiling; it reopened for worship in January 2024 after a long restoration.
Explore this stop1382–83 · Early Ottoman
Yıldırım Bayezid Bath-house
Dated AH 784 (AD 1382–83) by its inscription and signed by its architect on the keystone, one of the most remarkable baths of the early Ottoman period, with a dome of about 20 metres over the men’s changing hall.
Explore this stop
When visiting the mosques, please mind prayer times and dress modestly; the mansions are private and can be seen from outside.
Winter 1333–34
A traveller in Mudurnu
When the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta set out from Geyve towards Mudurnu in the winter of 1333–34, the night’s snow had buried both the road and its tracks. A guide who wanted his fee in advance abandoned the party on a snowbound mountainside, and as dusk fell they lost their way.
He rode on towards some buildings he could make out in the distance. What went through his mind, he later wrote, was a prayer:
“O God, let these at least be houses!”
They were — a dervish lodge. The dervishes brought in his stranded companions. It was the eve of Friday, and the townsfolk had carried up food for a gathering of remembrance that lasted until morning.
The next day the party reached Mudurnu at the hour of Friday prayer and lodged with the Ahis. Welcoming and caring for travellers was among the best-remembered virtues of the Ahi brotherhoods — and the table laid in the bazaar today has its roots there.
Mudurnu was then a young Ottoman town: Osman Bey is said to have left it, early in the 14th century, to his comrade-in-arms Samsa Çavuş.
Walk the bazaar the traveller reached: watch the route on the map or follow it on your phone.
Let your table be ready
The bazaar gets busy on weekends and holidays. Book ahead and we will be expecting you.