Experience Bursa like you know someone here.

Bursa's dish, eaten in Bursa: sliced döner on pide, tomato sauce, yogurt, and butter poured on at the table.

A 700-year-old Ottoman village on the mountain's foot — cobbled lanes, timber houses, and the longest breakfast of your week.

The black table olive the whole country asks for by name — buy it in the town it's named after, at harvest if you can.

Bursa's student town beside the university — cheap plates, live music, and a crowd that is twenty-two and talking to strangers.

Twenty domes, a silk caravanserai with tea in the courtyard, and a covered bazaar that still sells things people need — the Ottoman capital in one walk.

Turquoise tiles on a hill above the Gökdere, then a bridge with shops built on it — the prettiest corner of old Bursa.

Tea on the terrace where the empire's founders are buried, the whole plain below and Uludağ turning pink behind you.

Three big parks for a city that calls itself 'green Bursa' — a walk, a run, a picnic, and on match days the roar next door.

From a city street to alpine forest in half an hour — nearly nine kilometres of gondola line, and a picnic at the top.

A 2,500-metre national park above the city — forest trails and yayla picnics in summer, Turkey's oldest ski resort in winter.

Bursa's port town on the Marmara — a long promenade, fish by the water, and the sea bus that makes Istanbul a day trip.

A Greek-built olive town on the coast west of Mudanya — churches turned mosques, a stone school, and the best olives you'll buy from a doorway.

An island village on Uluabat lake — a 750-year-old plane tree, storks on the roofs, and a boat out among the lilies.

Ancient Nicaea — Roman walls you can still walk through, the church of the councils, and the workshops that make the tiles the world knows.

Hot mineral water that sultans came for — in a 1385 bath under a dome, a short bus ride from the center.