Escape the Crowds

Kızılcahamam: the thermal town and Soğuksu forest

Hot mineral water and a black-pine national park an hour north — Ankara's answer to a cold weekend.

₺₺a full day, or a nightautumn for the forest colours, winter for the hot water

Why do it?

Eighty kilometres north on the Istanbul road, Kızılcahamam is a small town built on hot springs — 'red hamam' in the name — and it has been Ankara's spa since the republic's early days. The town is ringed by thermal hotels with indoor and outdoor pools of genuinely hot mineral water, and most of them sell day-use entry, which is what Ankara does on a grey Sunday in January. Behind the town is Soğuksu National Park, declared in 1959 as one of Turkey's first, a thousand hectares of black pine and fir with marked trails, picnic clearings and a colony of black vultures — real forest, in a province that mostly isn't. Between them they cover both things a steppe capital lacks: hot water and trees.

The Smileys Take

The version we recommend is a Saturday drive up, a long forest walk in Soğuksu in the morning (entry is a small park fee), lunch in the town, and two hours in a thermal pool before driving back — or stay the night if a group wants to make a weekend of it. In autumn the forest is the reason; from December it's the water, with steam over the outdoor pools and snow on the pines. Bring your own towel and flip-flops. ⚠ VERIFY day-use hours and prices at whichever hotel you pick — they change season to season and are written for overnight guests — and check the park is open in deep winter. Buses from AŞTİ run all day; a shared car is easier with four.