ÇANDIR KALESİ

A beautiful place where history and nature are intertwined

I don't remember that the road to Çandır Castle, where I walked 35 years ago when my son was a 10-month-old baby, on an art club tour, which we were a member of, was so bumpy. Starting from Ayvagedigi plateau, there was no other direction except for a Çandır sign, only at the plateau exit. :( Halfway down the road there is a fountain that tastes fruity, cold water flowing for me. If you look up to the left while approaching Çandır Castle, you can see it from afar, you can take a photo. Attention !!! As we approach the slope on the west side of the castle, the road gets narrower and there is a sudden bend in the shape of a hairpin. There is no warning sign in this bend. You will suddenly turn the steering wheel to the left, or if there is someone in your vehicle while approaching the slope, you will walk ahead and see the bend beforehand and you will pass the bend. Here is a wide left slightly There is a sloping square. You can park your vehicle here. I walked to the castle stairs, parking the hairpin so that it would not prevent another car from turning on the sharp bend. After parking your vehicle, look towards the table-shaped mountain, you will see stairs with iron railings on the rocks, these stairs are almost hidden in the square !! you can reach from the entrance. The stairs are about 180 steps. Solid iron handrails on the right and left of the stairs will help you a lot. On the top of Masa mountain, there is a small house of reinforced concrete (I was amazed how they removed the sand, gravel, brick, etc.), which was half-built, for which purpose and by whom. It can be a fire watch box by the General Directorate of Forestry. I photographed many treasure excavations on the top of Masa mountain. I even photographed a piece of shovel between the ruins of the castle and the church. The excavations damaged the historical castle a lot. The wiew is wonderful. It is useful to be careful while walking, watch out for the abyss !!

The road that is not worth going is very bad and hard to get to the castle

A historical place worth considering. But unfortunately it is a derelict and neglected place. I claim that there is no more historical and important place in Mersin than here. Since it could not be promoted and advertised, it was handed over to its fate in a dilapidated state.

A beautiful and untouched place to be seen. If we do not count the lack of date signs and neglect, we can say that it is beautiful.

I like it, there are wonderful buildings with excellent views, but most parts have collapsed due to neglect, urgent restoration is needed.

A place worth going to. The road is better if you go by the village of Çandır. We went with Citroen C4. It is possible to go up to the front of the castle entrance. As of this date ... Because I do not know what happens later. The road and the castle care out of 10. The castle is actually a very special place. It is said that its history dates back to the 14th century. Aesthetically beautiful, but most of them are gone. The stairs are suitable for climbing. Children can come out. The facilities where the castle is zero. The toilet fountain does nothing. According to him should go. The view is great. Because it is difficult to go, its naturalness is intact and abandoned. The entrance to the castle is convenient for camping.

It is the richest architecturally and the most complex of all Armenian castles. However, the history of the castle goes back to earlier times than the Armenians. It is suggested that this place may have been the Byzantine castle Papirion or Papurion. It was occupied by the Karamanids for a short time in the middle of the 14th century, and at the end of the 14th century, it was captured by the Mamluks. The important feature of the castle is its gate. A staircase consisting of approximately 172 steps with two curves is used to climb up to the castle. The first bend is entered through an opening of approximately 1.30 cm. On the southwest side, stairs leading to a natural water basin can be seen through a partially hewn door. This hollow has been transformed into a cistern. On the west side, an arch was built to carry water to the cistern. The east side of the place where the first stair steps are was protected by a wall. However, as this wall collapsed, an iron railing was built. At the end of the first part of the stairs, there is a door with circular moldings and a corridor. The walls of this corridor lean against the edge of the cliff. This type of entrance is an uncommon feature. Only Dağlı Castle has such a staircase entrance with a corridor. Instead of the destroyed stone steps of the stair steps, iron steps were made in some places. The most striking of the ruins in the castle at the top is the one in the northwest. Here, there is a church ruin and a two-storey building complex. Arched passage doors between the large rooms of the building complex, decorative elements and paint traces in the other intact rooms can still be seen. A small staircase leads to the upper floor rooms. It has been observed that the buildings advancing from the northwest edge to the south have been destroyed on this floor. In addition, the wall remains of the large area surrounding the whole building complex are occasionally encountered. The stone workmanship in the church has the characteristics of the 11th century. It is an uncommon feature in the two-storey area in the side rooms on the apse sides. The motifs on the stones in the heavily damaged church are worth seeing and are similar to the church in the Girls Monastery to the east of the castle. Recently, there have been heavy collapses in the buildings in this region, especially in the part seen from the northwestern facade. Although other building groups belonging to the castle can not be seen from the dense vegetation, there are some building remains inhabited by the civilians in the southeast part, a destroyed church, cisterns, wall remains and a sarcophagus.