Bitlis Castle was built in 312 BC by Badlis, one of the commanders of Alexander the Great; the city of Bitlis takes its name from him.
The castle stands on sheer rock between two streams in the centre of the city, and its walls run 2,800 metres. Sources record that within it were a caravanserai palace, a mosque, a covered market and houses; of all that only the castle survives. There are 670 embrasures around it, and because it was built on sheer rock there is no defensive ditch. Restoration work began in 2004 and continued at intervals over a long period.
The castle changed hands many times. İyad bin Ganem took Bitlis and its castle in 641, in the time of Umar ibn al-Khattab. The city passed to the Seljuk dynasty in the reign of Melikşah and was joined definitively to Ottoman territory under Süleyman the Magnificent. During the First World War Bitlis was under Russian occupation for five months in 1916 and was retaken on 8 August that year on the order to attack given by Mustafa Kemal, commander of the Sixteenth Corps.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Bitlis as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from -4.2 °C in January to 23.1 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in March (196 mm) and lightest in August (7 mm). Long-term means for 2011-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
