Mudurnu is a charming town where corn is still popped on the stove at night, grandmothers tell their grandchildren stories, and time all but stands still…

Some Anatolian towns have a characteristic smell. Some, Like Karaburun, are surrounded by forest, redolent of pine and resin; others are steeped in the fragrance of daffodils in spring.

Some are balmy with the scent of the sea and seaweed. Others smack of laurel soap.

The scent of still others comes distilled in the retort of history, permeating even the staircases of their old wood-frame houses.

Mudurnu for this reason smells decidedly Ottoman. Don’t be surprised when you come eye to eye with the Clock Tower as you look out from the summit of Seyh-ül Ümran! Time seems to have stood still a number of times in Mudurnu’s past. The white-painted houses down below, the hazelnuts spread along the roadside to dry, women wending their way to the market clutching chickens to their breasts, young girls busily embroidering in front of houses, old men bracing their backs as they bend over to pick up a fallen cap.

Suddenly the shrill crow of a rooster breaks the silence. And time, fast asleep beside the Clock Tower, stirs slightly.

The yellowed leaves of the trees turn green and the gardens of the old wooden houses fill with children. If it’s Saturday, the market is set up.

With their local costumes, inimitable dialect and cordial manner, the women are the true owners of the Mudurnu marketplace and can be regarded as the last surviving Black Sea representatives of a tradition on the verge of extinction.

Although produce from other parts may arrive at the Mudurnu market, you can buy here a smorgasbord of edibles from big white butter beans and the unique Kanlica mushrooms to soft ‘eksimik’ cheese and sesame-flavored ‘saray’ helva. And the market’s most salient feature is that the women sell all their products-cheese, yoghurt, jam and Korova syrup-themselves.

A STRING OF SHINY BEADS
As you enter the town nowadays, you will be greeted by the Yariskasi Mansion, a boutique hotel. The valley gets deeper and you see the streets lined with old houses.

In the heart of town, the Keyvanlar, Haytalar and Armutçular mansions line up like shiny beads on a string. Then, all of a sudden, a drummer starts beating his drum, announcing a circumcision, or perhaps a wedding party.

When the sound of the drumbeats has receded, the Mosque of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, compatriot of the Mosque of Sultan Selim the Grim, will whisper to you the legends of the holy men buried here. For memories are everything in Mudurnu.

Horseshoes, hoes, rakes and adzes hang in front of the ironsmiths, who find it impossible to hire apprentices today. Meanwhile the shop of the last coppersmith is bursting with ewers and pails, kerosene lamps, braziers and minaret decorations.

The saddler and the hatchetmaker usually open their doors on market days, while the stovemakers work at a furious pace as winter approaches, bending and folding the sheet iron as their wives boil up cranberry syrup at home. Faded sepia photographs are more precious than color photos in Mudurnu, the reason for this being internal migration.

When their offspring leave town in search of work in the big cities, the old people satisfy their longing by fingering the old photographs.

Photographs of grandchildren, born in far-off places and sporting school smocks, stand next to old pictures atop consoles. And the yearning grows stronger inside the houses with gardens where poplars rise and dahlias bloom.

Mudurnu is a town where corn is still popped on top of the stove at night and dahlias still tell their grandchildren stories. A town where men coming from the mosque sit and chat in front of the barbershop with its obligatory caged canary, and squirrels scurry along telephone lines, carrying the nuts they have gathered back to their nests.

And the Mudurnu Clock Tower surveys its wise old town from the western slope of the citadel. Built in 1890-91, this tower’s fate was little different from that of its counterpart in Göynük.

Despite many restorations, fires have robbed it of much of its beauty. Mudurnu, which in the past wove life around itself like a cocoon, has begun making strides in tourism in recent years, carving out a name for itself among Turkey’s other historic towns. The restoration of the old houses and mansions is just the first phase…

DON’T SKIP THE LAKES
The roads running into the countryside from Mudurnu will take you many places. The Kapankaya hiking trail that starts from the ironsmiths’ market, for example, runs past the tiny Garipler lakes and their steep slopes. When you arrive at Hisar Kalesi via Çoban Çesmesi, you will see the whole Mudurnu panorama spread before your eyes. The roads will also take you to three lakes: Abant, Sülüklügöl and Karamurat.

Abant, one of Turkey’s most famous lakes, was once a ‘natural set’ for the Turkish film industry. Its shores, lined now with hotels, abound with horse-drawn phaetons on weekends.

The Abant highlands are an ideal practice ground for amateur hang gliding buffs, and a Paragliding Festival is held here every autumn. Karamurat Lake is small but famous for its pike.

Meanwhile Sülüklügöl, a lake some 50 km from the town, is situated among black pines and enormous leafy plants. In addition to hiking enthusiasts, off-the-road enthusiasts also frequent this area in their jeeps.

Although you need a permit from the National Parks Department to camp on the lake, pitching a tent for the day poses no problem.

The leeches that once inhabited this 1200-meter-high lake have long since disappeared as feed for the new fish stocks. Ever mindful of the old days when kilims were spread in gardens, teapots simmered under the Milky Way and the natives gathered outdoors to enjoy the summer nights, the residents of Mudurnu welcome visitors to their town.

In the words of a Mudurnu folk song: “The walnut branches hang low / Bare your ivory arms, my love / By which way shall I come? / They’ve got all the roads surrounded.” But don’t you pay them any mind.

Both roads and hearts are open in Bolu. Autumn is coming, winter is not far off. What matter if it’s rainy and overcast? Hey, we’re off to Bolu. Why not come along?