The Sultan Baba bath at Örcün in Gölcük was built in the eighteenth century, stood long unused, and reopened in 2021 as a calligraphy museum. The municipality restored it, and in 2021 it reopened as a museum of calligraphy holding 172 works.
Among the pieces are a copper cauldron cast in the reign of Bayezid II and a wax figure of the calligrapher Ali Vasfi Efendi himself. The work displayed in front of that figure is the one the museum draws attention to: a panel carrying the twenty-eighth verse of Sûrat Fâtır, brought in by an antique dealer and identified as a piece Ali Vasfi Efendi wrote about a hundred and fifty years ago. Entry is free and no appointment is needed.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Kocaeli as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 6.3 °C in January to 24 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (108 mm) and lightest in August (42 mm). Long-term means for 1929-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
Visiting hours
- Hours
- 08:30 - 17:30, closed Monday, Saturday, Sunday
