After I had returned to Istanbul for a few days (I think a total of 2), it was time for another trip. A really good friend of mine, Elif (the same one I traveled to Eastern Turkey with), invited me to come and visit her at her home for a few days. I appreciated the offer and thought it would be a great chance for me to see another city in Turkey that I may not have otherwise seen. I also thought it would be fun to hang out with Elif for a few days, since with traveling and with her doing summer school stuff, I wasn't sure when we would see each other again.
The journey to Bursa from Istanbul is a fairly short one. It takes a little over two hours to get there by bus. The best part is that you get to take a fairy over the Marmara Sea. If one looks at a map of Turkey, the location of Istanbul is a small slither of land separating two much larger seas. Bursa is just inland from the coastline on the bottom sea (Marmara) and so the best way to get there is to cross the sea. Crossing on a car fairy (this one took about 30 mins to cross) reminded me of my days as a younger kid in Florida. Sometimes when we would travel to Mayport (in northern Jacksonville), we would go the long way down State Road A1A. To cross the St. Johns river, they used a car fairy instead of a bridge. I am pretty sure it is one of the few car ferries left in the United States. Suffice it to say, it had been a while since I had ridden on one.
On the bus I had been working on my blog posts and trying to catch up. I exited the bus to enjoy the scenery and the cool air from the salt water. The area around the sea is kind of mountainous (a lot of earthquakes happen in this region) and so it was pretty to look at. Another interesting thing that you could see were the famous brown jellyfish. Apparently, the year I was there was an especially bad year and they were all over the place. It certainly made me think twice about swimming the Marmara. While outside admiring the ocean I met a brother and a sister from Bursa. At first I felt like they were making fun of me, but I ended up talking to them for a little bit. The conversation was of course limited by my Turkish (so they could still have been making fun of me and I just don't realize it).
Once we crossed the Marmara Sea it was only another 30-45 minutes before I arrived at the bus terminal in Bursa. I exited the bus and stepped out into the hot sun. I was immediately struck by how hot and humid it was. It felt as if my two hour bus ride had actually taken me back to Florida instead of just across the Marmara. I stepped out of the bus and went into the terminal to find Elif waiting for me. Her dad was waiting for us in the parking lot and he came to pick us up.
Her dad drove a yellow car, which resembled one of those taxi cabs. It actually made me chuckle when I saw it. I put my stuff in the back of the car and got in and we drove to Elif's house. Elif's dad was an interesting guy. He wasn't like other Turkish people I met. It's not that he was rude...but he wasn't overly friendly either. I liked Elif's mom a lot. She was a really nice lady. My opinions may have been tempered by Elif's own relationships with her parents (as she was translating for me and commenting on them herself). Her dad helped keep up a mosque near their home while her mom worked for a bank as a supervisor. This was surprising since usually the gender roles in Turkey are reversed.
Anyways, we put my stuff in their guest bedroom and Elif and I set out towards the city center of Bursa. Our first stop was the Ulu Cami (Great Mosque). This mosque truly lives up to its name. Built between 1396 and 1400, it is primarily Seljuk architecture. The building itself has 20 domes. The inside has a large amount of open space and is one of the biggest mosques I have ever seen still in operation (the only one bigger that I have seen is the Blue Mosque). However, my favorite aspect of the Ulu Cami was definitely the fountain in the middle of the mosque. Inside the mosque is a fountain and it's awesome. I'd never really seen something like that insider a place of worship before. Elif showed me a spot where apparently anything you pray for will come true. When she was a senior in high school she knelt there and prayed to be accepted to Bogazici (and now she is a current student there), so maybe it works!
After the mosque we walked over to see the Tombs of Sultans Osman and Orhan Gazi. On the way there, we walked through the markets of Bursa. These markets were historically significant because Bursa lies on the infamous silk road. Here in these market (even today) there were items from places in the far East. It was cool to be on the Silk Road. We didn't stay too long because most of the items for sale were silk scarves and other types of clothing items and I'm not really much of a shopper.
The tombs of Osman and Orhan Gazi were pretty amazing to see. Similar to the way the tombs in Eyup were decorated, the tombs of these individuals had a green cloth draped over them. Additionally, to enter the building that houses their tombs, one is required to take off their shoes just like in mosques. These tombs are so important because Osman and Orhan were essentially the cofounders of the Ottoman Empire. Before the Ottomans took Istanbul in 1452, Bursa was their capital. The function as a capital allowed Bursa to grow and develop for the 70 or so years prior to the capture of Istanbul. Additionally, Bursa is seen by many as the birthplace of modern Turkey. It was clear that I was in the presence of history in the tomb and I am glad I got to see it.
We then continued to walk to Tophane, which is the highest point of Bursa inside the city. It had a really neat view of the city and of part of Mt. Uludag (Great Mountain). Elif and I enjoyed the view and snapped some nice pictures before eating at a restaurant up there nearby. I took Elif out to dinner (I think we had some kebab something or other...I just ordered whatever she told me to have) to thank her for inviting me to her place and showing me around. After dinner we came back home and hung out in their house.
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