Experience Eskişehir like you know someone here.

Meatballs on butter-soaked bread under tomato and yogurt, a pulled halva that isn't the tahini kind, and a simit with its own protected name.

A bar street in a city of students — cheap pints, live bands, shouting over music and a crowd that is mostly under thirty.

A hill of ochre, blue and rose Ottoman houses with their upper floors leaning over the lanes — the town Eskişehir grew out of, and still the first walk.

A slow river through the middle of town, crossed by a dozen footbridges, with tour boats, gondolas and half the city walking beside it after dark.

A castle of 26 towers, a pirate ship on a lake, a Japanese garden and a zoo — the city's weekend park, unashamedly playful.

Three hundred and fifty metres of real sea sand, a lake, an Olympic pool and sunloungers — hours from the nearest coast.

A long pedestrian park strip over the city's hot springs, with old neighbourhood hamams on either side — the centre's everyday evening walk.