Safranbolu's city history museum occupies the old government house, an imposing cut-stone building set on the hill where the castle once stood, in the old bazaar area of the town. The inscription over its door records that it was built in 1904 through the efforts of the governor of Kastamonu, Enis Pasha, and the district governor, Mir Ahmet Bey, with the townspeople contributing to the cost. It has 800 square metres of enclosed space and a cellar, and it served as the government house until the great fire of 1976 left it in ruins. Restoration by the ministry ran from 2000 to 2006, and it opened on 8 February 2007 as a city history museum.
The hilltop around it is worth the climb on its own. Beside the old government house stand the clock tower built in 1797 by İzzet Mehmet Pasha, a native of Safranbolu and grand vizier to Selim III — which the ministry describes as the oldest clock tower in Anatolia still running on its original mechanism — along with an arsenal building of 1890, the old prison of 1906, and the castle mosque of 1890.
Inside, the first floor carries the history of the town and of the building, maps, publications, a satellite image, an exhibition hall and a conference hall. The second floor opens with republican-period dress, and its 'Safranbolu in Photographs' hall runs from the Ottoman period to the republic, with Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman and republican coins and other material; the ethnography hall shows the objects of traditional Safranbolu life.
The ground floor is the part to leave time for. Alongside illustrated material on trade and the traditional crafts, the tradesmen's and craftsmen's bazaar is reconstructed as a set of working spaces: the Şifa pharmacy, the Turkish delight maker, the yemeni shoemaker, the cobbler, the last-maker, the packsaddler, the saddler, the woodworker, the blacksmith, the coppersmith, the tinner, and the tradesmen's coffee house.
Visiting hours
- Visiting hours
- Summer (1 May – 1 October) 08:00–19:00 · Winter (1 October – 1 May) 08:00–17:00
Getting there
- Access
- In the old bazaar area of Safranbolu.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Karabük as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 3.3 °C in January to 24.4 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in May (57 mm) and lightest in August (26 mm). Long-term means for 1965-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
