I have to confess that we changed our Turkey stopover plans after the second Istanbul city centre bombing this year, opting to postpone the beauties of the Ottoman capital till another occasion.

Instead, as we arrived in the evening, we had a night in the burbs, and then headed to Bursa, where we spent the remaining time.

The Tempo Suites Airport Hotel proved a highly recommendable option for the first stage of this plan. It has big, well-equipped rooms, and is located just three stops on the metro from Ataturk Airport, in the pleasant residential suburb of Bahelievler. An evening stroll here is a great way of easing yourself into Turkish life.



The following morning we travelled to Bursa via the IDO ferry from Yenikapi (the port at the end of the airport metro line). This is a somewhat messy journey (involving the metro, a minibus or short walk to the port itself, the boat, another minibus, and Bursa's metro), but it's definitely a better option than the long road trip. And the charms of Bursa make it all worthwhile.

Extremely helpful in planning a stay is The Best of Bursa website (indeed, this is where we got the idea in the first place).

Highlights:

1. Sailing the Sea of Marmara between Europe and Asia. I mean, honestly -- whose heart doesn't give a little bounce at that idea?



2. Mountains. They form a wonderful backdrop to the city of Bursa. And when the call to prayer sounds from the city's pencil-slim minarets, it bounces evocatively back off these natural ramparts.





3. Mosques and mausoleums. They're absolutely everywhere. Bursa was the first capital of the Ottoman Empire and a key staging post on the Silk Road, so there's a lot of history just sitting there right in front of you. Particularly interesting are the "kulliyes", which are social/religious complexes, consisting of mosque, mausoleum, graveyard, public kitchen, public bath, madrasah, and so on, around which congregate the associated residential areas. Apparently, Bursa was the first place this town-planning scheme was tried, and its success meant it was replicated throughout the Ottoman Empire. There's more on all this in the Bursa city museum (almost all in Turkish, but still worth a visit).















4. Hans. These courtyards in and around the larger market area were "built between the 14th and 16th centuries as inns and trading posts for caravanning merchants peddling their wares along Asia's trade routes". (Did you get that little bounce again? People have been travelling through this place for CENTURIES...) Today the hans make great places to admire silk and other beautiful products, and drink some tea (see below).



5. Bread. Who knew that the Turks were such phenomenal bakers? Crusty white or wholemeal loaves are the mainstays of breakfast (see below). But bread also takes the form of sesame-encrusted bread rings (known as simit and sold from ubiquitous little carts) or of pide (boat-shaped bread platters topped with various fillings). And chopped up pide forms the underlying layer of several meat dishes. One is Iskender kebap, a Bursa speciality. This is a wonderful combo of bread, lamb, and tomato sauce, served with yoghurt, eggplant puree, green chilli, and browned butter. Probably not epic in the cholesterol department, but really 100% delicious. A similar but simpler dish is pideli kofte, with little grilled meatballs placed on the chopped up bread.



6. Breakfast. Bread (see above), tost, black and green olives, tomatoes, cucumber, mild chillis, various kinds of pale and tasty cheese, salami, cigar borek, melon, strawberries, butter, honey, tahini and grape spread, rose jam...

7. Other food. I mentioned cigar borek, which are made of filo pastry. Equally delicious but very different is su boregi, which tastes like a cross between lasagne and quiche. Everyone, of course, knows baklava (and indeed I watched a 30-minute doco on the subject on the way over on Turkish Airlines). So that was literally the first thing we bought on our first evening's walk in the outskirts of Istanbul. We also acquired a couple of biscuit-textured, pasty-shaped pastries wrapped round a spicy fruit and nut mixture. But if you want something a little plainer, the Turkish take on muffins (again with spicy dried fruit) is pretty good. Bursa is positively running in places that sell candied chestnuts. But a rather different way to enjoy these nuts is to buy little rolls of chocolate-covered chestnut puree. Beware, though -- these are VERY moreish... Bursa's enormous market is a great place for a stroll. Expect to salivate as you contemplate the huge arrays of cheeses, nuts, olives, pickles, dried fruits, fresh fruit and vegetables, and sweets.







8. Drinks. Sage tea was a nice surprise. So was the grape juice that accompanied our Iskender kebap. Ayran, a close cousin of the South Asian lassi, was predictably delicious, as was the famous Turkish coffee, especially when served with little pieces of lokum (the little sweets generally translated as Turkish delight, but representing a much wider variety than that term conjures up). And Turkish tea -- served everywhere in little tulip-shaped glasses on saucers -- rapidly became a habit. It's feisty stuff, and needs at least one of the two sugar lumps it comes with.

9. Cats. No comment needed...





10. The language. Turkish is an agglutinative language. That means it adds syllables to a root word to express various distinctions of meaning. So the ideas contained in the English sentence "they were not coming" (third person plural, past, continuous, negative) can be expressed in one word in Turkish. I pre-learned a very little bit, courtesy of the helpful owl at Duolingo, but it would be cool to find the time to learn some more. Even if it's not related to Korean. Which it's not. Probably. Anyway, I have every intention of returning. With more Turkish.