Akçakoca is a small town in the Western Karadeniz region of Turkey.

Get in

Buses from Istanbul to Zonguldak call at town's otogar (bus station). Otogar is about 2 km east of town centre but your bus company provides free shuttle minibuses that will take you to downtown. Bus ride takes about three and a half hours from Istanbul.

The town is connected to main Turkish highway system by a quite winding road to Düzce, where it joins the motorway O-4/E80 and highway D100, both of which connect Istanbul and Ankara, two largest cities of Turkey. From both Istanbul and Ankara, it takes more or less around 3 hours to get to Düzce, which is a further half hour away from Akçakoca.

Get around

A public bus line connects downtown (çarşı) to the bus station (otogar) with a de-tour through the old town.

See

Welcome, Lenin! A wooden bust of Lenin, thought to have dumped to the Black Sea during the fall of the Soviet Union in late 1980s, and washed up to the beach of Akçakoca in 1994, makes the town having the distinction of the only place hosting a statue of the revolutionary leader in Turkey, a fiercely anti-communist ally of USA during the Cold War. There has been a heated and ongoing debate about whether to display the bust in a public park or not, however, according to the director of a national hotel booking website, the clamour about the statue made Akçakoca the most searched-for destination, surpassing much more famous destinations such as Bodrum, Çeşme, Antalya, and Alanya. As of 2011, although the current left-leaning mayor of the town is in favour of public display, the sculpture still awaits its final fate in the warehouse of the town council.

• Mosque (Camii). The central mosque in downtown is one of not-many mosques having modern architecture with an interesting rooftop (quite not a dome!) and rocket-like minarets. 

• Castle (Kale) (2 km west of town centre, opposite direction of otogar). This is one of the series of castles built by the Genoese (Ceneviz in Turkish) along the coast of Black Sea. 

• Old town. Old town of Akçakoca on a gentle hill is a well preserved neighbourhood of traditional houses of wood and firebricks, lining square-shaped blocks with streets intersecting ninety degrees with each other. 

Do

• Swimming. Kale Plajı ("the castle beach") just below the Genoese castle was briefly awarded "Blue Flag" which guarantees seawater purity in early 2000s. Although having lost that distinction since, it's reported to be still clean enough to swim safely, in fact it's said to be still one of the cleanest beaches and seawater in the vicinity. 

Connect

(+90) 380 is town's telephone code.

Go next

Routes through Akçakoca

Merges with near Adapazarı ←

W  E

→ Zonguldak → Samsun