Bingöl is named after a mountain, one whose summit, the provincial directorate explains, is scattered with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of small glacial lakes. The directorate is frank that the province has few great monuments to offer and that its draw is nature. Evliya Çelebi, it points out, listed the high pastures of Turkey and called the Bingöl yayla the most famous and most admired of them all, writing at length about its flowers, its lakes and the fish in them.
The best-known sight is the Floating Island (Yüzen Ada) near Hazarşah village in Solhan district: a small crater lake, ringed by hills on three sides, whose islands of grass bound together by roots drift slowly across the water and, the directorate says, rock gently like a raft when you step onto them. It is close to the Bingöl–Solhan road, with the last 1.5 km on an unpaved track. The other is the sunrise from Kale Tepe, at 3,250 metres in the Bingöl Mountains in Karlıova district, best watched between 15 July and 15 August: the sun first shows as a faint red glow, darkens, reveals three black patches that the directorate likens to human faces, then turns into a golden ball. Cars can reach the foot of the peak; the summit is a 25 to 30 minute walk, and there is nowhere to rest or stay on the way.
