1. Tokat City Tour: 

900 YEARS IN 900 STEPS

"THE CITY OF HISTORY AND CULTURE TOKAT"

Tokat; With the advantage of being established on the fertile lands of the Yeşilırmak basin, it has been an important trade and culture center throughout its 6000-year history, and is an important Anatolian city that has hosted 14 states and many principalities.

It is possible to find works from every period of history in every region of Tokat, from the Hatti, Hittite, Phrygian, Roman, Byzantine, Danishmend, Ilkhanate, Seljuk and Ottoman periods. In this respect, Tokat is an open-air museum.

In the Erbaa district, the ancient Horoztepe settlement, the Hittite settlement, the Maşathöyük Archaeological Site in Zile, in Sulusaray; Bearing the traces of the Roman-Byzantine Periods, Sebastopolis, the historical city of Komana in the central district, Tokat Castle, which was established for road safety again in the Roman Period, the historical castle in Niksar which was also the capital of the Danishmend State, the oldest Turkish Mosque built after Malazgirt Garipler Mosque, Yağıbasan Madrasa, Gökmedrese, Yeşilırmak-Hıdırlık Bridge, 9 zawiyas, Alipaşa Mosque and Bath from the Ottoman Period, Voyvoda Han (Tashan), Deveciler Han, Arastalı Bedesten, Latifoğlu Mansion Museum House with the most magnificent ceiling arch in all of Anatolia dating from the 18th century and the most beautiful wooden Mevlevi Lodge in Anatolia, the most beautiful Clock Tower; and the structures that are examples of civil architecture on Bey Street, Bey Hamam Street, Halit Street and Sulusokak; TOKAT is the only city where you can see the important works of architecture that the Turks have created in the last 900 years since they arrived in Anatolia...

Mevlana, who Evliya Çelebi praised as the "City of Scholars and Poets", was fortunate to spend part of his life in Tokat, where scholars such as Şeyhülislam İbn-i Kemal, commanders such as Gazi Osman Pasha, poets such as Zileli Talibi and Ceyhuni were raised, TOKAT is a city with unique natural beauties due to its geographical location, and is intertwined with history.

In addition to well-known handicrafts such as coppersmithing, kerchief making, weaving, wood carving, jewelry, blacksmithing, leatherworking, Tokat is one of the four important original ceramic centers in Anatolia that continued until the 20th century. ( İznik, Kütahya, Çanakkale )

TOKAT is a city where people with a folklore texture live, offering authentic beauties with various handicrafts, and who have absorbed different understandings in this geography by passing the diversity in its culture through the historical flow.

2. Ballıca Cave Tour (in UNESCO Geopark Network of World Heritage Tentative List)

Ballıca Cave is the most unique structure of the park. The cave is made up of karstic crystal lime stones that cover the metamorphic schists. The cave is developed not on a karstic belt but among single-local karstic blocks. These blocks are surrounded by schists. Hence, the areas where limestone surfaces are limited. However, its cave volume is quite large despite the limited surface. It has a length of 680m and covers an area of about 6.500m2 which is an indication of high karstification.

Ballıca is different and unique among thousands of caves in Anatolia and the world with its rich geomorphologic characteristics. Ballıca karst structures set a unique example with its location in Northern Anatolia away from the geographical areas where karst belts in Anatolia are generally located. As the most unique structure of the Nature Park, the Cave reflects each formation stage spreading out over a period of 3,4 million years as well as the climatic and hydrologic characteristics of each period with its speleothems and travertines.

The unique landscape aesthetic value resulting from the combination of its honey-colored speleothems, diversity, and richness makes it possible to follow the traces of each stage in the halls and galleries of the Ballıca Cave encompassing a period of millions of years.