Guide
Yazılı Canyon is a canyon and nature park in the Sütçüler district of Isparta, within the bounds of the village of Çandır. It was registered as a nature park in 1989.
The name, which means written, comes from a poem carved on a large rock in the canyon. The lines, attributed to Epictetus, argue that a person is free only in character: that freedom is measured by one's own nature, that sincerity of decision and honesty of heart are what make someone noble, and that inherited rank is worth nothing, since Zeus and not one's parents is the common ancestor of all. The closing lines address the passer-by, recalling that Epictetus was born of a slave mother and yet stood above everyone in wisdom. Byzantine places of worship and rock inscriptions stand around the poem.
Saint Paul passed through this canyon on his way from Perge to Pisidian Antioch, and for this reason the canyon counts as one of the holy places for Christians and for religious travel.
The park draws an average of fifty thousand visitors a year and is protected under the General Directorate of Nature Conservation and National Parks of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry for its biological diversity and as a natural habitat.
Turkish red pine forms the forest here. Alongside it grow alder, Türkiye oak, oriental plane, junipers, walnut, kermes oak, carob, laurel, wild olive, strawberry tree, mastic, storax, myrtle, hawthorn, Christ's thorn, rockroses, Spanish broom, ivy, oleander and bracken.
Birds recorded in the canyon include the sparrowhawk, long-legged buzzard and kestrel, the swift, the bee-eater, woodpeckers, sand martins, barn and house martins, yellow, grey and white wagtails, the robin, the redstart, the black-eared wheatear, the blackbird, warblers, the chiffchaff, spotted, red-breasted and pied flycatchers, and the long-tailed tit.
- Designated
- 5.09.1989
Entry fee
- Mediterranean group 2 · category 2 · Per person
- 55 ₺
