Guide
Gürcüoluk Cave Nature Park lies entirely within Amasra district of Bartın province, and the cave is the reason the area is protected. A ministerial approval numbered 1511 declared it a nature park; the descriptive text dates that approval to 11 July 2013 while the area record gives 12 July 2013. The park covers 49.9 hectares.
The cave itself is narrow, between two and two and a half metres wide, with a ceiling that rises from one to seven metres. Inside are stalactites, stalagmites, columns and curtain formations that the directorate calls exceptionally fine. Dissolved and deposited soil lies on the floor, especially at the eastern entrance, and the page adds a single sentence about the cave without saying what it applies to: that it has fossilised. Two horseshoe bat species live inside, which the directorate names only as the lesser and greater horseshoe bats.
The forest above the cave is the humid broadleaf woodland typical of the western Black Sea: beech, hornbeam, sessile oak, hop hornbeam, Norway maple, alder, sweet chestnut and lime, with pontic rhododendron, bay laurel, cherry laurel, hawthorn and rowan beneath them. Squirrel, hedgehog, tortoise and wild boar are recorded, along with hoopoe, goldfinch, gull, greenfinch, chaffinch, blackbird, robin, tawny owl and woodpecker among the woodland birds. Roe deer, brown bear and wolf are also present.
A flagstone path of about 500 metres leads to the cave. There is a car park for 32 vehicles, an entrance control point and hut, a prayer room, toilets, drinking fountains and rain shelters, and picnicking is allowed in the day-use area. Capacity is 500 visitors and 32 vehicles, and the directorate names June to September as the period when the park is most usable. It is run directly by the administration rather than a concessionaire. The park is 10 kilometres from Amasra and 29 from Bartın; from Makaracı village, 1.5 kilometres away, the village road leads to the Göller Yani locality.
- Designated
- 11.07.2013
