A sea in the mountains
Lake Van covers some 3,700 km², more than six times the area of Lake Geneva. Its water is so alkaline that almost nothing lives in it, and its blue shifts with the light through the day. Around its shores, 1,650 metres above sea level, lie the traces of Urartu, a kingdom that rivalled Assyria three thousand years ago, and of medieval Armenia. And there is the city of Van itself, rebuilt from scratch after 1918 and known all over Türkiye today for its breakfast.
What to see
Akdamar Island
The boat takes twenty minutes. The Church of the Holy Cross, dating from 921, is covered outside with reliefs from the Bible — Adam and Eve, Jonah and the whale, David and Goliath — and inside with frescoes. In April, with the almond trees in blossom, it is one of the defining images of Türkiye. At the time of writing (2026), entry is €13 under the official 2027 tariff, with the boat paid separately.
Van Fortress and the old city
An Urartian fortress from the 9th century BC on a rock about 100 metres high, with cuneiform inscriptions of the Persian king Xerxes carved into the cliff face and a royal tomb cut into the stone. At its foot lies the empty plain where old Van stood until it was razed during the First World War: two mosques are still standing, and nothing else. Sunset from the top, looking out over the lake, is the best moment of the day.
Çavuştepe and Hoşap
Çavuştepe was an Urartian palace-fortress, with wine storerooms and a temple; its long-serving custodian has spent decades reading the inscriptions aloud for visitors. Hoşap is a 17th-century Kurdish castle with lions carved over its gateway, set above a river on the road south towards Hakkari.
The Van breakfast
An institution: forty little plates of herb cheeses, honey with clotted cream, murtuğa (flour toasted in butter and cooked with egg), eggs with kavurma (slow-cooked preserved meat), jams, olives and bread from the tandır oven, served along Breakfast Street (Kahvaltı Sokağı) in the city centre. It takes two hours, and you won't need to eat again until dinner.
When to go
From May to October. In April the almond trees on Akdamar are in blossom, but it is still cold; winter is long, with heavy snow.
Getting there
There are direct flights from Istanbul and Ankara (about two hours). By road, Doğubayazıt and Mount Ararat are two and a half to three hours to the north, and Hakkari three to four hours to the south.
What to eat
Breakfast, above all. After that, keledoş (a stew of lentils, yoghurt and meat), fish from the lake — the inci kefali, or pearl mullet, which swims up the rivers in spring — and otlu peynir, a cheese flavoured with mountain herbs.
How to fit it in
Two days. Van is the hub of eastern Anatolia: together with Doğubayazıt and Kars to the north, it forms the classic route through the east of Türkiye.