The Kırkkaşık bedesten stands beside the Ulu Cami in the centre of Tarsus, and the two were built together: İbrahim Bey, son of Piri Paşa of the Ramazanoğulları, put both up in 1579. The bedesten has also served as a soup kitchen and as a medrese. Its name comes from the spoon ornament on the outer face — kırk kaşık, forty spoons.
The building is rectangular and entirely of cut stone, roofed with five tiers of domes, and you enter through barrel-vaulted doorways on the east, west and north. It holds 25 rooms.
It has never stopped trading. For a period it was known as the Beyaz Çarşı, the white market; after restoration work in the 1960s opened the eastern door it continued as a covered bazaar. Tarsus municipality has since restored it again, work that won a project competition award from the Union of Historical Towns. The shops today sell local craft goods in ceramic, wood, copper, silver, leather and textile, and there are restaurants serving Tarsus dishes and cafés pouring the local style of Turkish coffee, the Tarsusi.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Mersin as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 10.4 °C in January to 28.5 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in April, May, October and November; rainfall is heaviest in December (137 mm) and lightest in August (7 mm). Long-term means for 1929-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
