Yeni Han (Gaziantep)

Yeni Han is one of the historic caravanserais built near Gaziantep Castle, in the traditional two-story form used for inns that once sheltered merchants travelling the region's trade routes. What makes the building unusual is the roughly 500-year-old cave beneath it, originally used as a storage space and now opened to the public as a café. The cave, known locally as the Kaleoğlu Cave, keeps a constant natural temperature regardless of the season, a quality that made it practical for storing goods in the Ottoman period. Visitors can enter free of charge to see architectural details from the han's original construction while also sampling regional food and drink inside the cave itself. Together with the city's other surviving hans clustered around the castle, Yeni Han illustrates how Gaziantep's merchants combined security, storage and commerce within a single compact complex.