Things to do in Bursa

Landmark · Heykel, Osmangazi

The Great Mosque of 1399, roofed by twenty domes and hung with huge calligraphy panels, with a fountain running inside the prayer hall — and the covered bazaar spilling out from its doors.

Local tip: Go inside rather than photographing the exterior: the ablution fountain under the open dome, in the middle of the prayer hall, is unique and the point of the building.

Culture · Osmangazi (Heykel)

A 1491 silk caravanserai built to fund a mosque in Istanbul — two galleried storeys around a courtyard with a small domed prayer room raised on pillars in the middle.

Local tip: Sit in the courtyard for tea under the trees, which is what the city itself does. The cocoon trade still shows up here in early summer, and the surrounding hans sell silk and towels rather than souvenirs.

Food · Heykel, Osmangazi

The cluster of İskender restaurants in the old centre, several run by descendants of the family that invented the dish in 1867 — doner over pide, browned butter poured at the table, tomato and yoghurt.

Local tip: Order 'bir buçuk porsiyon' — a portion and a half — like everyone around you, and go at lunch. These are lunch institutions, not dinner ones, and several close early.

Neighborhood · Yıldırım, ~12 km east

A 700-year-old Ottoman village of timber-framed houses on cobbled lanes, inscribed by UNESCO in 2014 as part of the birth-of-the-Ottoman-Empire site, still lived in rather than preserved.

Local tip: Come for the serpme kahvaltı — the spread-out village breakfast with mulberry jam — on a weekday, when it isn't a coach stop. On the way out, stop at Yeşil Cami and Yeşil Türbe in Yıldırım for the best İznik tilework in the city.

Nature · Osmangazi → Uludağ

A 2,543 m mountain directly above the city, reached by an 8.8 km cable car climbing from Teferrüç through Kadıyayla and Sarıalan to the hotel zone at around 1,870 m.

Local tip: In summer get off at Sarıalan rather than riding to the top — the meadows, the picnic grounds and the walking trails are there, and it's fifteen degrees cooler than the city.

Culture · Muradiye, Osmangazi

A walled garden of a dozen small royal tombs around Murad II's mosque — princes and sultans' mothers under tiled domes, in a complex almost nobody visits.

Local tip: Ask the caretaker to unlock the tombs; most are kept closed and the tilework inside is extraordinary. Half an hour here is the quietest, best-value stop in Bursa.