The Güzelcehisar basalt columns stand about fifty metres high and run five kilometres along the Bartın coast. Volcanic in character, they formed eighty million years ago, and they are the reason the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry declared 14.30 hectares of this shore a natural monument on 14 August 2017.
The shape of the place is a product of cooling, and that is the thing to understand before you look at it. The rock is Late Cretaceous, basalt with volcanosedimentary character, lying in the Cambu Formation and made of trachyandesite laid down by a lava flow; because the basalt cooled slowly it cracked vertically, and those cracks are why the rock now stands in columns. The columns are five-sided. Near sea level their geometry stays regular, while higher up it breaks down, which is attributed to landsliding, tectonic movement and the strength of the rock itself.
Behind the columns the forest is the temperate broadleaf mixed woodland of the western Black Sea. Oriental beech, hornbeam, sessile oak and hop hornbeam are the dominant trees, with alder, field maple, Norway maple, wych elm, silver lime, chestnut, bay, cherry laurel and pontic rhododendron frequent among them, and hawthorn and rowan in the shrub layer. Calabrian pine is part of the tree cover too, and hazel, meadow grasses, nettle, firethorn, dog rose and ivy are among the other plants. A rocky ecosystem beside the woodland adds to the variety and to the look of the ground. Along the seasonal streams macrophytic and riverside systems develop. At the northern edge of the protected area a small part of the shore carries dune systems, with the Black Sea beyond; these are counted not as ecosystems of the site itself but as elements supporting its ecological integrity. Hedgehog, bats, tortoise, frogs, lizards, squirrel, jackal, fox, weasel, stone marten, wild boar, roe deer, hare and wolf live in the protected area.
Getting there is a drive in two stages. From the centre of Bartın, take the road that branches off towards Bartın port and go about eight kilometres west and north-west; then turn at the Güzelcehisar fork, which heads southwest, and continue about eleven kilometres. Camping is possible around the columns, there are two separate terraces for looking out and photographing, and an 800-metre wooden walkway carries visitors along the shore. Bird watching is described as a spring and autumn activity. A news report of 2020 put the number of people who had come to see the columns in the three years since the designation at 200,000.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Bartın as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 4.2 °C in January to 22.1 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in December (133 mm) and lightest in May (54 mm). Long-term means for 1961-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
