Guide
The town of Tirebolu was founded by Milesians and takes its name from Tripolis, meaning three cities. Two views are offered as to why: one holds that the town was named for the three headlands standing side by side on which it was built, the other for three castles — Sen Jan, Bedrama and Andoz.
The Sen Jan castle, also called Tirebolu Castle, stands on the peninsula running out to sea at the centre of the town, built on a natural rock within the water. It is thought to have been built in the fifteenth century BC.
The castle has a single gate, and its walls are supported from outside by towers on buttresses set at intervals. In front of it stand gun towers and a single cannon of unknown date. Ottoman gravestones lie within the castle; they were moved here from a burial ground nearby when a school was built on that site.
