Sokollu Mehmet Pasha, grand vizier to Suleiman the Magnificent, ordered this complex at Payas. Mimar Sinan built it, and the date on the work is 1574.
It was laid out to do several jobs at once. Inside there is a mosque; a madrasa; a bathhouse divided so that women and men bathed apart; a caravanserai; and a covered market holding forty-five shops.
The caravanserai is the piece that governs the rest. Its courtyard is large and ringed with domed rooms, which is where caravans and their travellers spent the night.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Hatay as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 8.1 °C in January to 27.9 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in April, May, June and October; rainfall is heaviest in January (197 mm) and lightest in July (16 mm). Long-term means for 1940-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
