Eastern Anatolia - Discover Turkey: Experience the Best of Turkey - page 643

Bus
Urfa's otogar is 5km north of town off the Diyarbakır road. Some buses will drop passen-
gers at a roundabout around 300m from the otogar. Taxis usually ask " 20 to the otogar.
Daily services include Ankara ( " 60, 13 hours), İstanbul ( " 75, 20 hours), Mardin ( " 30,
three hours) and Van ( " 45, nine hours).
Car
For car hire (around " 80 per day) try Mustafa Çaycı ( Click here ) or Harran-Nemrut
Tours ( Click here ) .
Nemrut Dağı National Park
The spellbinding peak of Nemrut Dağı (Mt Nemrut) rises to a height of 2150m in the
Anti-Taurus Range (not to be confused with the Nemrut Dağı near Lake Van).
The summit (admission " 8; dawn-dusk) was created when a megalomaniac pre-Roman
local king cut two ledges in the rock, filled them with colossal statues of himself and the
gods (his relatives - or so he thought), then ordered an artificial mountain peak of crushed
rock 50m high to be piled between them. The king's tomb and those of three female relat-
ives are reputed to lie beneath those tonnes of rock.
Earthquakes have toppled the heads from most of the statues, and now many of the co-
lossal bodies sit silently in rows, with the 2m-high heads watching from the ground.
Plan to visit between late May and mid-October, and preferably in July or August; the
road to the summit becomes impassable with snow at other times. Even in high summer it
will be chilly and windy on top of the mountain, especially at sunrise.