Bolu, Turkey Tourism

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Bolu Kargi depression. It is a busy town with timber processing, wool and leather manufacturing industries, and is plentifully supplied with timber from the adjacent mountains and with pastureland for raising livestock. It is also a major source of dairy produce for nearby Ankara and Istanbul, to which cities it is linked by a good fast road, still under construction in places. Bolu in fact has been a thriving commercial center ever since ancient times and was a halt on the trade route to central Anatolia - coach services between Istanbul and Ankara still break their journey here. The town has a lively market district and a reputation for producing the best cooks in Turkey.

History

Called Bythnia in antiquity, Bolu was founded by the Bythnian King Prusias I (235-183 B.C.), originally on a site about 4km/2.5mi east of the present town. It was enlarged under Hadrian. Antinoos, the town's most notable citizen in Roman times, was a favorite of Hadrian's and was deified by the emperor after drowning himself in the Nile -a sacrificial suicide intended to influence the gods in favor of Hadrian who had fallen seriously ill. Duly recovered the emperor honored Antinoos with posthumous deification and his own personal cult. Under Theodosius II (408-450) the town became the capital of the new province of Honorias, and in the Byzantine period was the seat of a metropolitan bishop. Bayazit I (1389-1402) initiated new building during the Ottoman period. In 1668 the town was almost completely destroyed by an earthquake, as a result of which practically nothing from earlier centuries remains.