Kahta Voyage Tips and guide

Mount Nemrut - the one with giant heads - is described here. The one with a crater lake is near Tatvan.

Kâhta is a town in Southeastern Anatolia, with a population of 132,000 in 2023. The reason to visit is Mount Nemrut, only accessible in summer.

This region was often a frontier between the Roman, Persian / Parthian and Armenian spheres of influence, but on and off from about 300 BC to 70 AD it had spells of independence as Commagene. This entity's ruling dynasty made up in pomp what they lacked in wealth and territory, equating themselves with the gods, and the culmination of this was their tomb-cum-shrine at the summit of Mount Nemrut. (They may have learned a trick from the mythical Nimrod or Nemrut, who became over-mighty and built the Tower of Babel.) The site lay forgotten until 1881 when it was surveyed by a German engineer, who must have been an anxious man as he'd been tasked by the Ottomans to find a road route through the mountains.

The climate is continental, with hot, dry summers and cold, snowy winters. This applies even more sharply at Mount Nemrut summit, which is best visited June-Sep.

37°46′59″N 38°37′1″E

Map of Kahta

37.73238.4691 Adıyaman Airport (ADF  ^IATA) has daily flights from Istanbul (IST and SAW) and from Ankara. The low footfall means few facilities, but car rental firms can arrange to pick up / drop off here. It's midway between Kâhta 15 km east and Adıyaman 20 km west.

Dolmuşes ply frequently along D360 between Kâhta and Adıyaman. You could hike 1 km north from the airport to flag one down at the interchange.

Buses from Istanbul take 19 hours to Adıyaman via Ankara, Adana and Kahramanmaraş. They continue to Kâhta (35 min), Diyarbakır and Mardin.

Otogar the bus station in Kâhta is an open square 500 m east of the main crossroads and Kommageneiz Hotel.

Adıyaman bus station is 4 km east of Adıyaman city by the road to Kâhta.

You need your own vehicle to reach the summit of Mount Nemrut, otherwise join an organised tour. Your accommodation will be keen to sell you a tour and will tell fat fibs about why you can't make it solo.

A paved road from the south ascends through Karadut, suitable for standard 2WD and reliably open June-Sep. It's often also open in May and Oct but there's no point coming up here in bad weather. Don't set off with less than half a tank of fuel, as you're going to be revving in low gear most of the way up and down. Park 500 m short of the summit and hike to the monuments.

A paved road from the north ascends through Büyüköz; it's suitable for 2WD as far as Güneş Motel. The last 2 km is a rough track, passable by 4WD with care but you might be safer to park at the motel and hike, or enquire if their own shuttle is running. Visitor vehicles cannot traverse the summit between south and north approach roads.

• 37.869438.5881 Karakuş Tumulus is worth a brief stop along the road to Mount Nemrut. It's a burial mound erected by Mithridates II around 30–20 BCE, which according to its orotund inscription contains his mother Queen Isias, sister Antiochis and her daughter Aka. Karakuş means blackbird, though the lugubrious statue on a plinth is an eagle - it toppled during the 2023 earthquake. The site is free to enter 24 hours. The cafe is open daily 09:00-23:00.
• 37.932838.60852 Severan Bridge was built (or re-built) around 200 AD under Emperor Septimius Severus. Two columns at its south end commemorate Severus, and originally two at the north end commemorated his sons Caracalla and Geta. But Caracalla assassinated Geta, and obliterated all monuments bearing Geta's name, including the namesake column. (Indeed it was death to speak that name, excuse enough for slaying 20,000 of Geta's supporters.) The bridge carried the road to Sincik until 1997 but is now closed to traffic, with a new road bridge 200 m downstream.
• 37.942938.65683 Arsameia is the rambling ruins of a city that had its heyday around 230 BC. A royal processional way leads up the hill to monuments glorifying Mithridates, who shakes hands with the gods as equals. With Mount Nemrut looming to the north, you sense he's building up to something.
• Yenikale or "new castle" is 2 km north of Arsameia, build by the Mamelukes around 1290 AD.

• 37.98073938.7408314 Mount Nemrut is a National Park and UNESCO World Heritage site. Its summit at 2134 m (7001 ft) has an extensive royal tomb and shrine, probably built from 7 July 62 BC as a slab depicts the night sky on that exact date. The peak is a 50 m rubble tumulus that's believed to contain the tomb of King Antiochus I, son of Mithridates, presumably along with family and a wealth of funerary goods. He was king of Commagene, briefly independent as a buffer state between Roman and Persian control, and he bigged-up his ancestry from the Parthians, Armenians, and the very gods themselves. Below the tumulus, a terrace facing sunrise and another facing sunset each have a row of giant statues of the gods sitting in state with Antiochus himself among them, so twice a day the gods got a pointed reminder of the deal he'd made with them. The heads have fallen off the bodies and rolled down the slope: this is probably iconoclastic wrecking not simple earthquakes. In modern times they've been propped upright and re-aligned to sunrise / sunset but not put back on their bodies.

The site is open whenever the access roads are passable daily from 04:30 (to see the sunrise) to 20:30, admission for foreigners €10 in 2025. Dress warmly for sunrise even in the height of summer.

• Perrhe or Pirin is the ruins of an ancient city 4 km northeast of Adıyaman on the road to Malatya. What you see now is the large necropolis, with sarcophagi, burial niches and catacombs.

• Hamams are traditional Turkish baths. Those in Kâhta remain closed since the earthquake.
• Water sports: where are they? Atatürk Dam has created a huge reservoir lake in the Euphrates valley, with one arm of it a few km east of town, yet this opportunity for recreation remains unexploited.

Half a dozen small stores in Kâhta between the bus station and main crossroads.

• Kâhta has a dozen places in the strip between the bus station and main crossroads.
• Adıyaman has a dozen centrally and a handful more west in Altınşehir.
• On Mount Nemrut, Nemrut Euphrat, Karadut Pension and Güneş Motel serve non-residents.

Hotels serve alcohol.

• 37.788138.61541 Kommageneiz Hotel, Mustafa Kemal Cd 3, ☏ +90 532 200 3856. Decent hotel at the town crossroads. B&B double 2500 TL. (updated Oct 2025)
• Taş Saray Bardakçı Hotel, Mustafa Kemal Cd 74 (100 m east of Kommageneiz), ☏ +90 416 725 8060. Clean and friendly. B&B double 3000 TL. (updated Oct 2025)
• Hotel Nemrut is a ramshackle place 100 m west of Kommageneiz at Mustafa Kemal 7.

• Işık Pansiyon is a clean simple place 13 km from the summit.
• 37.930938.78242 Karadut Pansiyon, Karadut Köyü, ☏ +90 533 593 7204. Clean modern guesthouse 12 km from the summit. B&B double 2500 TL. (updated Oct 2025)
• Euphrat Nemrut Hotel is 10 km from the summit.
• Antiochos Thedos Campsite is next to Euphrat Hotel.
• Tarih Otel is a peaceful place 100 m further up the road from Euphrat Hotel.
• Nemrut Çeşme Hotel is 8 km from the summit.
• Güneş Motel is 2 km beyond the summit, as the road begins its hairpin descent into Malatya Province.

• Samos Otel is 1 km east of city centre at Atatürk Blv 328.
• Tuğra Hotel is central at Sakarya Cd 16.
• Ramada by Wyndham is in the western suburb of Altınşehir, at 3035th Sk 9.
• Dedeoğlu Hotel is 200 m north of Ramada at 3037th Sk 4.

As of Oct 2025 Kâhta and Adıyaman have 4G from all Turkish carriers, but with many dead spots on their approach roads, and no signal on the lane up Mount Nemrut. 5G has not yet rolled out in Turkey.

• Şanlıurfa is south towards the Syrian border, and feels Middle Eastern, not least for the automatic weapons on display in the bazaar.
• Malatya to the north has a museum and several old mosques.
• Tatvan away east if you're collecting mountains called Nemrut: this dormant volcano has a crater lake but no giant heads. Its eruptions blocked the valley outflow to create the hypersaline Lake Van.

Ends at (N / S) ← Junction (N / S) ←

W  E

→ Diyarbakır → Merges with (N)