Kemaliye

Kemaliye - Eğin to older residents - sits in a gorge where the Karasu branch of the Euphrates cuts through the mountains, and its setting is extreme: the town is stacked on a slope of terraced gardens and old stone and timber houses with the river below and cliffs above. The valley is the Karanlık Kanyon, the Dark Canyon, where the walls close to a few hundred metres apart and a thousand metres high, and it is run by rafters and by boat. The other feature is the Taş Yolu - the stone road - a road about thirteen kilometres long along the canyon wall, some eight of them in thirty-one tunnels, begun as a narrow path in the 1860s, extended in 1949 to 1960 with state help and local donations, and finally completed in 2002; it is single-track, unlit and cut straight through rock, with the drop on one side. Kemaliye's houses are protected and it sits on Turkey's UNESCO tentative list. The town also has a serious emigration history and a well-known cultural festival in July.

Highlights

• The Dark Canyon - thousand-metre walls above the Euphrates.
• The stone road - thirty-one tunnels cut along the cliff.
• The terraced town - stone houses and gardens on the slope.
• The river - rafting and boat trips through the gorge.

When to go

May to October; the canyon roads are difficult in winter. July brings the town's festival and its emigrants home, which fills the accommodation.

What to expect

The stone road is single-track, unlit and unguarded above a serious drop - drive it slowly and only in daylight, and not at all if heights are a problem. Roads in are long and slow. Facilities are modest guesthouses.

Nearby

Erzincan is two and a half hours north-east; Divriği and its UNESCO mosque are north-west.

Key facts