Heading west from Malatya to Darende you will see a turning off on the right to the Levent Vadisi. A short drive will bring you to a turnoff on the right that ends at a Seyir Terası (Viewing Terrace) from which you can gaze out at some pretty breathtaking canyon scenery, including a rock arch and several pinnacles. Alternatively you can keep driving straight down into the valley where, from the bridge over a dry riverbed, you will be able to admire that same scenery from a different angle.
The authorities have allowed the building of a concrete restaurant cantilevered out from the top of the rockface – it looks better from below than from above. Signs suggested that there was also a trout restaurant on the valley floor although this may have fallen victim to the disappearance of the river.
It’s possible to continue driving through the valley and then over a pass which brings you down into the Ozan Vadisi and thence to Darende although I did not actually do this. There are said to be ruins of a church at Kıliseköy inside the valley.
The nearest “town” is Akçadağ, 20km to the south, although there is not much reason to go there.
Transport info
There is no public transport to get you to the Levent Valley and a taxi from Malatya is likely to be quite expensive. Since there’s nothing specific to do in the valley without lots of time to go in search of possible rock-cut churches it’s probably only worth coming here if you have your own car.
“Pausing to change police escorts in Akçadağ (the old Argha), Gertrude (Bell) was shown the ruins of a church with a mosaic floor. In the tea garden I approach a group of men who look to be passing from contented middle age into happy old age beneath the shade of a grape arbour. Despite it’s being the weekend, they are still smartly suited and, when I ask, turn out to be retired teachers and civil servants, Atatürkists to a man, unlike the youthful taxi driver Yücel who is a no-holds-barred government supporter. They toss the idea of the church back and forth like jugglers but in the end admit that they have no idea where it might have stood. Only when I mention Gertrude being shown some pieces from it stored in the local barracks do they perk up again. That will have been the Hamidiye Barracks, they tell me. It was demolished in the 1950s, taking with it, presumably, the bits and bobs she had seen.” Unused extract from original mss of Following Miss Bell, my book about Gertrude Bell’s travels in Turkey.
