For my last post, I felt like I couldn’t say enough good things about Konya. Less than a week later Ferda and I (with her parents too!) were in Eskişehir. This post will be a little more subdued. I certainly liked Eskişehir the first time I was here. Maybe this time was a case of too high expectations. As I mentioned before, Turks compare Eskişehir to cities in Europe.
Certainly Eskişehir’s street art:
could remind one of Bratsilava’s:
The Uysal Termal Oteli where we stayed:
could remind one of the Poço Iniciático at Quinta da Regadeira in Sintra:
Indeed couldn’t these photos be taken in Europe as well?
Ferda’s friend, Filiz, invited us to her home town and made sure we ate well.
I also ate very well during my first visit to Eskişehir, but I found that more rewarding when I traveled by bicycle to get there instead of taking the train.
“What? The train?”, you’re wondering. But, Bryan, I thought it was impossible to get train tickets in Turkey! For the Ankara-Kars line, that’s true, but for the İzmir Mavi Treni, with a little luck, we were even able to get tickets for the sleeper cars!
We were on the train for 13 hours. The bus takes half as long, but the train is more than twice as fun!
Eskişehir certainly has some very nice pedestrian areas. How come Turkey and Europe can do such a seemingly basic thing so much better than the US?
I’m quite sure those restored Ottoman houses aren’t a requirement for walkable downtowns. 😉
Filiz also took us to the Ottoman-era Atlıhan, now used for art and crafts workshops and sales:
Eskişehir has a number of museums, and as usual we didn’t have time for everything. Here Ferda is with her mother in front of the modern art museum:
We didn’t go in. It’s first on my list for next time. 🙂
The Ottoman-area Kurşunlu Camii complex is now home to the Odunpazarı Municipal Cultural Center with more art and crafts workshops, a Mevlevi library, and a Wood Carving Museum. We visited the latter with lots of pieces from when Eskişehir hosted the 2015 Wood is Good Festival.
We also went to the wax figure museum, but that’s probably of more interest to Turks than foreigners with people like Nasrettin Hoca:
Rumi’s there too:
but if that’s what you’re interested in, well, head to Konya!
Cheers!
Enjoyed it. When was this? It looked like distancing taking place? Derek and Jennie
Funny, it does look like that, doesn’t it? No, we were there in December. I think everything was so quiet because it was midweek and kind of cold.
Looks like fun to ride the train. What a beautiful city!