"Bursa-da" a Bursa Travel Page by DSwede

Bursa is around 2 million people. The city is actually rather long and rectangular, instead of the common circle. The majority of the city is on the side of a mountain, so it traverses much longer than it rises. The city has a long history, dating back to before the Silk Road from Asia, but that is when the city really began to develop. Bursa was the western end of the Great Silk Road, and therefore was a busy trade market of Asians and Europeans.

The city grew on the hill over the centuries mainly to save the lower flat lands for farming. Also, the Turks consider many of the natural springs on the side of the mountain to be extremely therapeutic and medicinal.

It snowed about 4" the first day I was here (early January), but since then the sun came out and most of that melted. It hovered in the 30’s F, dipping to the 20's F at night for most of the month.

In February, it snowed terribly hard here. Istanbul was in chaos. I grew up in the mountains and am accustomed to snow, but unfortunately there is not the proper infrastructure here to cope. They got about 3ft (1m) of snow and are about as well equipped to handle it as the Bay Area… rather comical actually. Lots of downed trees and power lines. My road was blocked by fallen trees, one missed my car by about 15ft. Some of the older locals said that they have not seen this in over 20 years.

I continued to live in Bursa until ~August, but commuted daily to Gemlik so a total of nearly 9 months. I watched winter melt away and spring pop up, only to see the sun of summer heat things like an oven.

The summers were hot and the winters were cold. Bursa is a place that truely has four seasons!! I used Bursa as a base camp to explore many nearby places like Istanbul, Troy and Iznik. Even some farther away, like Kas, Assos and Kapadokya.

(for more pictures, feel free to visit my Turkey Gallery. If you enjoy the pictures, please leave a comment.)

For some more general thoughts, please visit my Turkey page.