BURSA TOURS

Once home to the most flourishing silk industry of the Middle East and fabled for its 300 minarets, it was a city dedicated in equally to commerce to religion. From the fourteenth until the early twentieth century, its inhabitants never numbered more than 50,000. Today it is a sprawling metropolis of over 1,500,000 which is home to Turkey’s automotive industry and still a major centre of textile production, although the famed Bursa towels have long since outpaced its renowned silks. Equally famed was its natural hot springs, known in Turkish as Kaplıca, which abound in the western suburb of Çekirge, and which had been discovered by the end of the eighteenth century.

Today a pleasant way to get from Istanbul to Bursa is the new fast ferry service from Yenikoy (along the sea walls of Istanbul) to Mudanya in surprisingly quick seventy-five minutes.

Discover the Home of the Sultans – The birthplace of Ottoman Empire. Take a tour of the city beginning with the unique twenty-domed Ulu Cami (Great Mosque), built by Yıldırım Bayezid. To its east is the Yeşil Cami complex, erected by his son Celebi Mehmed. To the west, in Çekirge, is the beautiful complex of buildings endowed by his father, Murad Hudavendigar. It includes what is today known as the Hudavendigar Cami (Ruler’s Mosque), which was designed as a multi-purpose building (as were most early Ottoman mosques), containing under one roof a zaviye (hostel for dervishes) a medrese and the actual sanctuary itself.