Tokat Kalesi was founded in the Roman period, between 30 BC and AD 395, to keep the roads safe, and it stayed in Byzantine hands for roughly five hundred years. Danişmend Melik Ahmet Gazi took it for the first time in 1074, after which it changed hands at short intervals: the Danişmendids, the Seljuks, the Ilkhanids, the Eretnids, Kadı Burhanettin and finally the Ottomans. Built on steep and sheer rock, it is effectively a natural stronghold.
Its dungeon, known in Ottoman times as the Çardak-ı Bedevi, held a number of well-known prisoners, among them a Byzantine emperor of the Diogenes family. Vlad III of Wallachia — the prince the Ottomans defeated, later known as Dracula — was held here under guard together with his brother, after a period at Eğrigöz Castle in Kütahya and before being sent on to Edirne to be educated alongside the young Mehmed, the future conqueror of Constantinople.
On the southwest side of the castle is a rock tomb of great age, cut with a column at its mouth and two chambers behind, one of them large. A stairway of 362 steps leads down to the foot of the castle, and most of that route has now been cleared.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Tokat as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 2 °C in January to 22.5 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in May (59 mm) and lightest in August (9 mm). Long-term means for 1929-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
Visiting hours
- Hours
- 08:00 - 16:45, closed Monday
