Deveci Hanı is one of the early Ottoman hans, a two-storey building of cut stone and brick with 31 rooms on the upper floor. No inscription gives its date; the provincial directorate places it in the first half of the fifteenth century on the evidence of the building itself. On the south front is an inscription by Mustafa Razi, known as Çıpanlı Razi.
It spent a century as something else entirely, which is why locals still call it the old prison. Governor Rüstem Paşa had it repaired and turned into a jail in 1846, and it went on serving as one until 1949; Governor Hacı İzzet Paşa carried out a thorough restoration in 1891 and 1892, adding an infirmary and four rooms, the part that now holds the multi-purpose hall. Since its restoration the building has been given over to art: the ground floor holds exhibition rooms and studios named for the Edirne painter Hayri Çizel and for Hasan Rıza, who worked in the city, with administrative offices above. It stands in the city centre.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Edirne as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 2.8 °C in January to 24.8 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in December (71 mm) and lightest in August (23 mm). Long-term means for 1930-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
