The Friday mosque of Karaköy village stands seven kilometres west of Bolu. It was built in 1562-63, and its foundation is bound up with Mehmet Bey, son of Musa Pasha. It is rectangular, laid in rubble stone, with a flat wooden ceiling carried on four wooden posts in two rows, and an open porch on the north also carried on wooden posts.
The provincial directorate singles out the decoration — the tiles and the workmanship of the mihrab and the minbar — and the details repay a close look. The main door is marble with a low arch, and its wooden leaves are worked in the kundekari technique; above it is a tiled inscription in thuluth script. The mosque is known to have had two tiled inscriptions, but one of them no longer survives. Inside, four piers of square section on the north carry the wooden gallery. The mihrab has five sides with muqarnas, and the minbar is plain wood. The windows run in two rows: the lower ones have pointed-arched pediments and wooden frames, the upper ones pointed arches with plaster tracery. The eaves are corbelled brick.
Getting there
- Access
- In Karaköy village in the central district of Bolu.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Bolu as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 0.6 °C in January to 20 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in May (61 mm) and lightest in August (24 mm). Long-term means for 1929-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
