The town of Tirebolu was founded by Milesians and takes its name from Tripolis, meaning three cities. Two views are offered as to why: one holds that the town was named for the three headlands standing side by side on which it was built, the other for three castles — Sen Jan, Bedrama and Andoz.
The Sen Jan castle, also called Tirebolu Castle, stands on the peninsula running out to sea at the centre of the town, built on a natural rock within the water. It is thought to have been built in the fifteenth century BC.
The castle has a single gate, and its walls are supported from outside by towers on buttresses set at intervals. In front of it stand gun towers and a single cannon of unknown date. Ottoman gravestones lie within the castle; they were moved here from a burial ground nearby when a school was built on that site.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Giresun as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 7.2 °C in February to 23.4 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in October (163 mm) and lightest in May (69 mm). Long-term means for 1929-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
