Bursa Highlights
A curated tour of Bursa, the first capital of the Ottoman Empire, from ancient Prusa and royal tombs to silk caravanserais, a UNESCO village and Mount Uludağ.
Trip Stops
- 1
Opened in Kültürpark in 1972, the museum holds about 25,000 finds from roughly 3000 BC to the fall of Byzantium. Highlights include a reconstructed Achaemenid-era tumulus burial from Üçpınar and a Roman bronze Apollo.
📍 Osmangazi, Bursa, Turkey
- 2
The 1426 complex of Sultan Murad II holds twelve royal tombs, including those of Prince Cem and Mahidevran Hatun. The tomb of Murad II has an open dome, so rain falls straight onto his grave.
📍 Osmangazi, Bursa, Turkey
- 3
The Bithynian king Prusias I fortified this hilltop as ancient Prusa, and when the Ottomans took it in 1326 the entire city still fit inside its walls. Roughly 2 km of walls and gates, including the Saltanat Gate, still frame the old Hisar quarter.
📍 Osmangazi, Bursa, Turkey
- 4
The founders of the Ottoman dynasty rest here, and Osman asked to be buried beneath the silver dome of a Byzantine chapel. Orhan's tomb preserves a mosaic floor from an earlier church, and Tophane Park and its clock tower offer the best views of Bursa.
📍 Osmangazi, Bursa, Turkey
- 5
Bayezid I vowed to build twenty mosques after the 1396 Battle of Nicopolis, then built one with twenty domes instead. Its walls carry 192 monumental calligraphic inscriptions.
📍 Osmangazi, Bursa, Turkey
- 6
Built in 1491, this silk caravanserai still sells silk, and a Medici agent kept an office here in the early 1500s. The small octagonal mosque in the courtyard stands on pillars so pack animals could not soil it.
📍 Osmangazi, Bursa, Turkey
- 7
Founded in 1339–40, it is one of the oldest surviving Ottoman monuments and began as a lodge for Sufi dervishes. Its brick construction echoes Byzantine building traditions.
📍 Osmangazi, Bursa, Turkey
- 8
İskender Efendi is said to have invented this dish in 1867: döner slices over pide, topped with hot tomato sauce, melted sheep-milk butter and yogurt. The İskenderoğlu family still holds the trademark and runs the restaurant.
📍 Osmangazi, Bursa, Turkey
- 9
This 1442 stone bridge carries a tiny bazaar of craft workshops, a rarity it shares with Florence's Ponte Vecchio. It was bombed during the 1922 retreat and rebuilt in 1949.
📍 Yıldırım, Bursa, Turkey
- 10
The museum occupies the former medrese of the Yeşil Complex, built in 1419. Bursa's first museum opened in 1904, and the collection moved into this building in 1929.
📍 Yıldırım, Bursa, Turkey
- 11
Finished in 1424 for Sultan Mehmed I, it launched the so-called Bursa style and takes its name from its green-blue tiles. After the 1855 earthquake, French architect Léon Parvillée led its restoration.
📍 Yıldırım, Bursa, Turkey
- 12
Mehmed I's octagonal mausoleum was completed in 1421 and crowns a hilltop among cypress trees. Most of its blue-green exterior tiles are Kütahya replacements installed after the 1855 earthquake.
📍 Yıldırım, Bursa, Turkey
- 13
Emir Sultan was a scholar from Bukhara who became Bayezid I's son-in-law. His hilltop complex was rebuilt in Ottoman Baroque style in 1804 and again in 1868.
📍 Yıldırım, Bursa, Turkey
- 14
This UNESCO village has about 270 protected Ottoman houses, bans cars, and has lanes as narrow as 60 cm. Its name means Friday, after the weekly prayer gathering of the surrounding Kızık villages.
📍 Yıldırım, Bursa, Turkey
- 15
The Teleferik climbs from 395 m to 1,870 m on an 8.8 km line billed as the world's longest gondola lift. In antiquity the mountain was known as Mysian Olympus.
📍 Yıldırım, Bursa, Turkey
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