Tourists might feel like they've entered a time warp while walking down Cildirpinari Street on the outskirts of the Anatolian town of Safranbolu. Stone Ottoman-style houses line the narrow cobblestone pathway, the buildings' exteriors accented with dark, heavy wooden shutters and curved balconies. The street's namesake, the 19th-century Fountain of Cildir, has been carefully restored, its copper-colored taps emerging from a backsplash of creamy white marble. Safranbolu, midway between Ankara, Turkey's modern capital, and the Black Sea coast, owes its fame to the town's architecture and to saffron, the valuable spice from which the town takes its name.

Safranbolu is strategically located at the Kastamonu-Istanbul junction of the old caravan trade route between the Black and Mediterranean Seas, a stop along the storied Silk Road. Muslim and Greek Orthodox residents have lived on opposite sides of the town since the 11th century, coming together in the lower part of the city at the old bazaar to trade, play backgammon and drink coffee. By the 14th century, in sharp contrast to nearby settlements, the town had a large mosque and a medrese (Islamic school), an even larger Orthodox church, aqueducts to ensure a reliable flow of water to the vineyards, and caravanserais to host the caravans that passed through its gates. Safranbolu further thrived in the 18th century, thanks to its famous son, Safranbolulu Izzet Mehmet Pasha, the influential vizier of Sultan Selim III (r. 1789-1807) who also built a clock tower and a large mosque in his hometown. 

During the first half of the 20th century, Safranbolu declined in commercial importance, but in the third quarter of the century, it revived itself as a center of tourism, especially after its addition to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1994. Today, the city of Safranbolu consists of three distinct historic districts: the marketplace, known as Cukur (literally, “the pits”), because of its low-lying location; the non-Muslim areas of Kirankoy; and Baglar, marked by vineyards and “konaks,” large houses with gardens of fig, walnut and pomegranate trees that the local bourgeoisie and officials from Istanbul used as summer residences in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The serene beauty of Kirankoy and Baglar contrasts sharply with the noisy “new town,” an assemblage of tall, ugly buildings and crooked sidewalks constructed in between the two districts. The biggest eyesore is the Town Hall, a late 20th-century affair that towers over the main square of the new town.