Discover Erbil: Citadel, bazaar and parks

Erbil offers several ways to plan a trip that brings together history, market life and parks. The citadel and museums showcase architecture and cultural collections; Qaysari Bazaar draws attention to trade and goods, while the parks bring together their own facilities. When planning your holiday apartment stay, it helps to decide first which of these aspects you want to shape your visit.

Citadel and museums: history on different scales

The Citadel of Erbil is a fortified settlement on an impressive, egg-shaped tell. A tell forms when people repeatedly settle in the same place and build there over generations. The citadel also displays a fan-shaped layout dating from the later Ottoman period. These two features point to different periods: the tell represents repeated settlement, while the layout reflects a particular historical period.

The Kurdish Textile Museum is located within the citadel. It displays carpets, kilims and nomadic tents from different parts of Kurdistan. Alongside the architectural history, it offers a glimpse of textile objects and their regional variety. The Syriac Heritage Museum presents a distinct historical perspective: a mural covers the history from the Akkadian and Babylonian periods through the Assyrian period to the Chaldean period. The museum also offers a virtual tour through sections on agriculture, household life, culture, music, history and traditional dress. While the mural brings together a sequence of periods, the tour presents further topics side by side.

Market life at Qaysari Bazaar

Qaysari Bazaar complements the museums with trade and a variety of goods. The covered market was founded in the early 13th century. Its covered lanes are home to gold and jewellery dealers, fabric and clothing shops, spice stalls and household goods. The bazaar also includes shops and teahouses; traditional Kurdish sweets, spices and gold are among the goods on offer. Different interests come together here: you can explore the market as a historic site or focus on its goods and commercial life. Its covered lanes give this part of Erbil a different character from the museums’ thematically organised collections.

Parks with different highlights

The parks also offer different highlights. Shanidar Park is in central Erbil and has a cable car, waterfalls and streams. It is also home to Shanidar Gallery, with a permanent exhibition on decorations. Shanidar Park 2 is directly next to Shanidar Park. Here, parkland, a cable car, water features and an exhibition provide distinct points of interest.

Sami Abdul Rahman Park offers a different scale. It was developed in two construction phases across an area of 800 acres and is one of Erbil’s largest parks. Its facilities include restaurants, stalls, stadiums, roads, radio channels and large cinema screens; the range of facilities may change. Shanidar Park, by comparison, offers a different combination of parkland, water features and a cable car. The size and varied facilities of Sami Abdul Rahman Park give it a distinctive place among Erbil’s parks.

If you are travelling with children, it can help to compare your interests together: would you like architecture and history to take centre stage, would you prefer to focus on the market and its goods, or would you rather plan more time in parks? This can help you take a concrete next step when searching for a holiday apartment in Erbil: compare the location of each accommodation option with the places you would like to include in your travel plans. This way, your choice of base reflects the mix of experiences that matters to you.

For the broader travel overview: Erbil.