Ulu Mosque, Malatya

Malatya is a busy city situated on a fertile plain at the footof the Anti-Taurus Mountains. The archaeological museum houses new finds from the Lower Firat region that date from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic ages. Next to the city museum, you can shop in the bazaar where an entire passage way of shops is given over to copper wares. In Malatya, the apricot-growing center of Turkey, it is possibleto sample many delicious apricot confections as well as otherfresh and dried fruits. The two small towns which pre-date the establishment of present-day Malatya are easy expeditions. Aslantepe, 7 km away, was the capital of a Hittite state in the first millennium B.C. , and Battalgazi, 9 km away, was once the ancient city of Melitene. At the latter stand the ruins of a Byzantine enclosure, and in the center of town the 13th-century Ulu Mosque is an excellent example of Seljuk architecture.