Pamukkale
This ancient spa city's location atop Pamukkale's tourist-magnet travertines is quite spectacular. Founded as a curative centre around 190 BC by Eumenes…
Must-see attractions in Western Anatolia
Western Anatolia
Rural Çavdarhisar (60km southwest of Kütahya) is home to one of Anatolia's best-preserved Roman remains. The Temple of Zeus, built under Hadrian (r AD 117…
Bursa
Built for Mehmet I, the Yeşil (Green) Cami was completed in 1422 and represents a departure from the previous, Persian-influenced Seljuk architecture that…
Bursa
This Ottoman-era complex incorporates a stately medrese (seminary; 1426) and the equally handsome Sultan Murat II (Muradiye) Cami, also built in 1426, but…
Bursa
This enormous Seljuk-style mosque (1399) is central Bursa's dominating feature. Sultan Beyazıt I built it in a monumental compromise – having pledged to…
Pamukkale
The World Heritage–listed saucer-shaped travertines (or terraces) of Pamukkale wind sideways down the powder-white mountain above the village, providing a…
Western Anatolia
Added to Unesco's World Heritage List in 2017, this remote site in the Anatolian hinterland trumps many of Turkey's ancient sites for its sheer scale and…
Eskişehir
Eskişehir's protected heritage district is crammed with cobblestone alleyways of timber-framed konaks (mansions) with overhanging upper stories. Many of…
Eskişehir
This ambitious art museum, with its highly contemporary wood-slat facade riffing on Eskişehir's history as a major wood-market town, opened in 2019…
Pamukkale
The Roman theatre is the highlight of Hierapolis, dramatically sitting uphill from the site and overlooking the ruins and mountains beyond. The stage area…
Tofaş Museum of Anatolian Carriages
Bursa
Old cars and horse-drawn carts are housed in this former silk factory with gardens. It's a 550m walk uphill, signposted right after the Setbaşı road…
Western Anatolia
Laodicea was once a commercial city straddling two major trade routes, famed for its black wool, banking and medicines. Cicero lived here for a time and…
Western Anatolia
The major site of the Phrygian Valley is in the village of Yazılıkaya, 32km south of Seyitgazi. Archaeologists call this important section Midas Şehri …
Martyrium of St Philip the Apostle
Pamukkale
The extraordinary octagonal Martyrium of St Philip the Apostle at Hierapolis is built on the site where it's believed that St Philip was martyred. The…
Eskişehir
This religious complex, once used as a Mevlevi lodge by Eskişehir's Sufi community, was built between 1517 and 1525 by a leading master of classical…
Western Anatolia
İznik's once-imposing Roman walls, renovated by the Byzantines, no longer dominate but parts of their 5km circumference remain impressive. Four main gates…
Bursa
An early Ottoman mosque, the 14th-century Emir Sultan Cami was named for Sultan Beyazıt I's son-in-law and adviser, a Persian scholar-dervish. Today's…
Western Anatolia
This kale (castle) or hisar (fortress) overlooks Afyon from a craggy rock. The strenuous approach up a steep but well-maintained set of stairs passes…
Pamukkale
A sort of underground Pamukkale, this cave gushes with calcium- and sulphur-rich water. The flow, into a large sinkhole, creates a bright white pyramid…
Bursa
Some ramparts and walls still survive on the steep cliff that is the site of Bursa's citadel and its oldest neighbourhood, Tophane. Walk up Orhan Gazi …
Western Anatolia
This stately whitewashed Ottoman building once housed dissident Hungarian parliamentarian Lajos Kossuth (1802–94), and exemplifies upper-class Kütahyan…
Western Anatolia
The hilly cobbled streets that radiate out around the Ulu Cami are chock-a-block with a liquorice allsorts selection of colourful Ottoman timber-framed…
Pamukkale
Housed in former Roman baths, this excellent museum exhibits spectacular sarcophagi from nearby archaeological site Laodicea and elsewhere; small finds…
Western Anatolia
İznik's museum is housed in a soup kitchen that Sultan Murat I built for his mother, Nilüfer Hatun, in 1388. Born a Byzantine princess, Nilüfer was given…
Bursa
Bursa's sprawling Kapalı Çarşı (Covered Market) complex is made up of several historic buildings strung out along Kapalı Çarşı Caddesi, the market's main…
Eskişehir
This modern museum showcases artefacts from the Chalcolithic era to Ottoman times. Downstairs is devoted to bigger pieces such as sarcophagi, milestones…
Eskişehir
West of the centre on the Küthaya road, this area of cleared sazova (cane field) has been turned into a family friendly paradise of fresh air and rolling…
Western Anatolia
Originally a great Justinian church, Aya Sofya (Church of the Divine Wisdom) is now a mosque surrounded by a rose garden. The building encompasses ruins…
Western Anatolia
Look for the mechanical rotating dervish statue on the roundabout at the southern end of Cumhuriyet Caddesi and you'll see the Dönenler Cami directly…
Western Anatolia
Scant foundations remain of the church that was once famous as the burial place of the Byzantine emperor Theodore I (Lascaris). Built around 800 and…
Western Anatolia
Afyon's major mosque complex (a five-minute walk from Hükümet Meydanı) was built for Gedik Ahmet Paşa in 1472. The blue-tiled, spiral-fluted minaret…
Western Anatolia
Located in the Vacidiye Medresesi (1314), next door to the Ulu Cami, this old-school provincial museum exhibits finds from Ancient Aizanoi including a…
Museum of the Republican History
Eskişehir
This museum celebrates Atatürk and the Turkish Republic through hundreds of photos, paintings and collages covering seminal events such as the battles of…
Bursa
The mausoleum of 5th Ottoman sultan Mehmed I Çelebi (and several of his children) stands in a cypress-trimmed park opposite the Yeşil Cami. During his…
Eskişehir
Manicured to a tee, Kent Park is a civic masterpiece of liveable city urban planning. During summer, the artificial sandy beach and swimming pool is…
Yılmaz Büyükerşen Wax Sculptures Museum
Eskişehir
Hugely popular with Turkish tourists, this waxworks museum is Eskişehir's local version of Madame Tussauds, recreating the likenesses of important Turkish…
Western Anatolia
Among the most important surviving Seljuk mosques in Turkey, the Ulu Cami (1273) is supported by 40 fat, soaring wooden columns with intricate stalactite…
Western Anatolia
This 13th-century Seljuk creation was a dervish lodge when Sultan Veled (son of dervish founder Celaleddin Rumi) made Afyon the empire's most important…
Pamukkale
The foundations of the Temple of Apollo at Hierapolis remain today. Once the heart of the city, this was where people came to consult the temple's oracle…
Eskişehir Science & Experiment Centre
Eskişehir
If you're travelling with kids, this colourful complex makes for an entertaining break from all the historical ruins. Like a cross between a science…
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