Guide
Payas castle stands west of the Sokullu Mehmet Paşa complex, 700 metres from the shore, ringed by a ditch. It sits so close to the complex that it works as the symmetrical counterweight to the caravanserai on the complex's eastern side, and it is understood from this that Mimar Sinan planned the complex with the castle in mind and treated it as part of the whole.
The castle has eight towers. It was built during the Crusades by the Genoese and served under the control of the Templars, whose task was the safety of pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem. When Payas passed to the Ottomans, what the Genoese had left was beyond repair down to the foundations, so it was rebuilt following the original plan. Its importance grew after the conquest of Cyprus and it became a significant base for the Ottoman state.
In its own period the castle worked as a guard post and a forward campaign headquarters, protecting the Sürre processions carrying the annual gift to the holy cities, the trade caravans and the harbour at Payas.
Inside is a courtyard with stores and barrack rooms on the lower floors around it and, above, towers and bastions reached by stairs; a small mosque and a barracks building stand in the middle of the courtyard. The poet Namık Kemal was held here for a period on his way to exile in Cyprus, and in the first years of the Republic the castle was used as a police post and a prison.
