Bursa's West Side, from Museums to the Baths of Çekirge

Begin the day in the garden of the complex on the II. Murad Caddesi side and head first for the Tomb of Murad II, southwest of the mosque. According to the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, the tomb was built in 1451, and the Bursa Site Management describes Murad II as the last Ottoman sultan to be buried in Bursa. Before you reach the door, look up, because the wooden eave above the entrance, decorated with painted work, is craftsmanship that the encyclopedia article singles out for praise. Inside are two squares, one within the other; the outer is 13.45 metres a side, the inner 6.90 metres, with a walkway 3.25 metres wide between them. The dome over the central part rests on four columns, whose bases and capitals were reused from other buildings, and four piers. The centre of this dome was deliberately left open, because in his will the sultan asked that the sun, the moon and the rain fall directly on his grave. He was buried not in a cenotaph but directly in the earth, and the Site Management reads this simplicity as the mark of a ruler who disliked display. In the side section lie Şehzade Alaeddin and other children of the dynasty; the sources give slightly different lists of who is buried here.

When you come out of the tomb, read the garden like a family tree, because these buildings, put up between 1449 and 1573, tell the story of one dynasty over more than a hundred years. The earliest is the Tomb of Hüma Hatun of 1449, and this hexagonal building belonging to the mother of Mehmed the Conqueror is, according to the encyclopedia, very modest. The tomb known today by Cem Sultan's name was in fact built in 1479 for Şehzade Mustafa, the eldest son of Mehmed the Conqueror, who died in 1474. Cem Sultan died in Italy in 1495, and his body was brought to Bursa in 1499 and placed in this tomb. Looking in from the marble portico in front, you see the turquoise and dark blue hexagonal tiles that cover the walls up to window height, the gold leaf on their frames and the wooden door leaves worked in the kündekari technique. Look for the same kündekari craftsmanship on the door of the square tomb of Gülşah Hatun, wife of Mehmed the Conqueror. According to TDV, the octagonal Tomb of Şehzade Ahmed was built in 1513 by the architect Alaeddin, and besides Şehzade Ahmed his brother Şehinşah and Şehzade Korkut are buried inside. The door inscription of the Tomb of Şehzade Mahmud is dated 1507, the building is attributed to the architect Yakub Şah, and inside the tiles rise to a height of 2.90 metres. Visit the tombs of Mükrime Hatun and Şirin Hatun one after the other and compare them, because the encyclopedia notes that their inscriptions and decoration are identical. The tomb of Şehzade Mustafa, son of Süleyman the Magnificent, was built by Selim II in 1573, and the cenotaph of his mother Mahidevran is also here. Two buildings in the garden have no walls. The Tomb of Ebe Hatun, said to belong to the wet nurse of Mehmed the Conqueror, was built as a baldachin open on all four sides. The Saraylılar Türbesi is an open structure with no inscription, and nobody knows who lies inside. During a restoration carried out in three phases between 2012 and 2015, later layers of plaster were removed and the original painted decoration and inscriptions beneath them came to light again. Ask the attendant which tombs are open that day, keep quiet in the buildings you enter and do not touch the tiles.

When you leave the garden, cross to the house opposite; according to the Culture Portal this seventeenth-century building is one of the oldest houses still standing in Bursa. A pavilion belonging to Murad II is thought to have stood on the site, and tradition names it as the birthplace of Mehmed the Conqueror, while the Bursa Site Management suggests that the house was built in the seventeenth century as the residence of a pasha. Expropriated in 1946, the house opened as a museum in 1958, closed to visitors in 1992 and reopened in 2005. In the principal room upstairs, look at the wooden cupboard painted with floral motifs, the wooden ceiling with geometric patterns and the hexagonal ceiling centrepiece. If you want to see one more example of Muradiye's domestic architecture, walk to Uzunyol Sokağı, south of Kaplıca Caddesi. The house there was built in 1836 as a state guesthouse, served for a time as the Russian Consulate, and was bought and restored in 1988 by the artist Hüsnü Züber. Visited for many years as the Living Museum, the building reopened in 2021 as a youth centre after a restoration that began in 2015, according to an article published on DergiPark. So rather than planning to tour the interior, look at its timber facade and the texture of the street. Then walk down the slope northwards, towards Çekirge Caddesi, to reach Kültürpark.

Source: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi; Bursa Alan Başkanlığı; Kültür Portalı; Bursa Büyükşehir Belediyesi; DergiPark; Wikipedia.

Coming down from Muradiye, enter Kültürpark on Çekirge Caddesi. According to the Culture Portal, the park was opened in 1955 by Reşat Oyal, the mayor of the day, and it is Bursa's first large landscaped green space. Covering about 393,000 square metres, it has officially been called Reşat Oyal Kültür Parkı since 1999. The main goal of this stop is the Bursa Archaeology Museum inside the park, so go to the museum first and leave strolling in the park for later.

The museum was founded in 1904 as a branch of the Imperial Museum, and the Müze Kart page presents it as the third oldest museum in Turkey. The collection moved to the Yeşil Medrese in 1930 and in 1972 to the present building, designed by the architect Ertem Yücel. According to the Culture Portal, the museum holds about 25,000 objects, of which around two thousand are on display. The display is divided into four sections, and visiting them in order lets you read the history of the Bursa region from beginning to end. The first hall runs from the Miocene to the Phrygian period; here look at the elephant remains from the Paşalar fossil site within the boundaries of Mustafakemalpaşa and the female skeleton found at Aktopraklık Höyük. In the Stone Artefacts Hall, a bronze statue of Apollo and a bronze bust of Athena from the Roman period stand out among the marble sculptures. The second hall shows coins, glass, oil lamps, metalwork, seals and jewellery in chronological order from the Archaic period to Byzantium. Among the museum's highlights are a Hellenistic gold diadem decorated with olive kernels, found in Gemlik, and a bronze statue of a child carrying a dog, found in a test excavation in Mudanya. The last section is devoted to finds from the Üç Pınar Tumulus, uncovered in a rescue excavation in 1988. Here three grave stelae from the period of Persian rule and the reconstructed parts of a war chariot dated to the sixth century BC are on display. The Culture Portal also notes that the Greco-Persian grave stele found in the village of Şükraniye near Karacabey is one of three known examples in the world. After seeing the interior, go out into the garden, where a rich collection of grave stelae stands in the open. Examining the reliefs on the stelae in raking light makes it easier to pick out the details of the figures.

When this route was being prepared, the Müze Kart page listed the museum as temporarily closed to visitors, so check its current status before you go. If the museum is closed, shorten this stop and give the time to the park itself. In the middle of the park lies a lake that can be toured by boat, its shore lined with tea gardens and places to rest. The park also has an open-air theatre, the municipal conservatory and an amusement park. Kültürpark has hosted the International Bursa Festival since 1963; if you come in summer, look at the festival programme. Sitting on a bench by the lake or on a shady patch of grass, this is the best place on the route to rest in the middle of the day. If you want to end the route here, the BursaRay Kültürpark station next to the park makes it easy to return to the city centre. If you are continuing, go out to Çekirge Caddesi and turn west towards Çekirge; the Karagöz Museum is on the same street, about a kilometre and a half ahead. If the walk feels long, you can ride a few stops on the buses or minibuses that run along the street.

Source: Kültür Portalı; Müze Kart; Wikipedia.

As you walk west along Çekirge Caddesi, watch for the small park on your right, on the north side of the street, because the Karagöz and Hacivat Monument stands here. See the monument before entering the museum; according to the Culture Portal, the present ceramic arrangement is based on work completed in 1982 by the sculptor Gönül Akıncı, commissioned by the municipality. The same source's museum page says that the site was turned into a symbolic shadow-play screen in 1950 and that three representative gravestones stand behind it. According to legend, Karagöz and Hacivat were workers on a mosque building site in the time of Orhan Gazi and were executed because their witty talk kept the other workers from their jobs. The same legend tells how Şeyh Küşteri later made their figures and played them on a screen before the sultan, who had come to regret his order. Metin And, author of the Karagöz article in the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, stresses that none of these legends rests on any document. So see the monument less as a grave than as a place of homage to shadow theatre.

The museum stands directly opposite the monument, on the other side of the street. The building is a former electricity distribution station that served as a transformer for about thirty years, and after the 3rd International Bursa Karagöz Festival in November 1995 the municipality turned it into a cultural venue. It opened in June 1997 as Karagöz Evi, the Karagöz House, and was converted into a museum in 2007. The two-storey building covers 1,008 square metres and contains two galleries, a performance hall, a figure-making workshop and a specialist library. In the first gallery you see the history of Karagöz theatre and the tools used behind the screen. Looking closely at a figure, you can also read how it was made; according to the encyclopedia, the figures are cut from camel hide, treated until translucent and coloured with natural dyes. Look too at the small holes in the figures, because the puppeteer holds them with rods set into these holes. According to the encyclopedia, a horizontal rod moves the figure in one direction, while a vertical rod allows it to be turned left and right. The second gallery is devoted to traditional figures, and the core of the collection is formed by figures from the collection of Metin And together with works by masters such as Tacettin Diker and Orhan Kurt. The galleries also display hand and string puppets as well as cartoons from Ottoman-era newspapers.

Study the way a performance is staged as well; according to the encyclopedia, the play is performed behind a white screen lit by an oil lamp or a candle. A play usually consists of the sections called mukaddime, muhavere, fasıl and bitiş, the prologue, the dialogue, the main episode and the ending. If you catch a performance, you will follow the clash between Hacivat's ornate speech and Karagöz's plain popular talk through these sections. Karagöz plays are staged regularly in the museum's 69-seat performance hall, so find out the show times in advance. Turkish shadow theatre, Karagöz, was inscribed on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage in 2009. If you come with children, ask whether the workshop has a programme on making figures. Ask the attendant before taking photographs and do not lean on the display cases. Because the museum's closing day and performance schedule can change, check the current announcements of Bursa Metropolitan Municipality. When you come out, walk a few hundred metres further west along Çekirge Caddesi, where Eski Kaplıca awaits you in Çekirge.

Source: TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi; Kültür Portalı; Wikipedia.

The last stop on the route is Eski Kaplıca in Çekirge, which the Bursa Site Management also calls by the name Armutlu. Because the building still works as a bath today, the usual way to see the interior is to bathe; if you only want to look, ask at the entrance whether this is possible. The Site Management writes that the bath was built by Murad I as a double bath, but no document gives the exact date of construction. Sources suggest different dates between 1371 and 1385; according to Hasan Yılmazyaşar's article on DergiPark, Ottoman chronicles and archival documents link the building to the reign of Murad I. According to some sources, the bath was built on the remains of a bath from the Byzantine period. Researchers debate whether the building is at heart a Byzantine structure or the work of Turkish architects and builders, and Yılmazyaşar examines this disagreement in detail. According to a view reported by Wikipedia, the builders of Murad I kept the plan of a fifth or sixth century structure, rebuilt the walls and added the dome.

Inside, you first reach the changing area added in the reign of Bayezid II; according to Discover Islamic Art it was built in 1511, and Wikipedia notes that the inscription bearing this date survives. The roof of the changing area consists of two domes and two half-domes, it has a fountain in the middle and it takes its light from many windows. The same source also notes a basement beneath the changing area that may have been built for visitors' animals. The best-known part of the building is the space beneath the dome carried by eight columns. Discover Islamic Art places this columned baldachin in the hot section, while the text of the Bursa Site Management describes the dome with round arches linking eight columns as part of the warm room. Look carefully at the capitals of the columns, because the sources say they are pieces reused from the Byzantine period. In the hot section there is a round pool seven metres across. The water flows from a spout shaped like a lion's head, opposite the entrance, first into a small trough and from there in stages into the pool. The semicircular niches in the corners take the place of the private cubicles found in the corners of classical Ottoman baths. Yılmazyaşar notes that earlier examples of this niche arrangement are found in Roman and Late Antique baths. The historian von Hammer-Purgstall wrote that at its source the water was hot enough to cook eggs.

The building has been repaired many times over the centuries, and Wikipedia lists repairs in 1535, 1612, 1629, 1681 and 1882. According to Discover Islamic Art, the roof was covered with lead in 1535-1536 and renewed with red tiles in 1612. According to the Site Management, the domes of the hot section are covered with tiles today, while the dome of the cold section is covered with lead; when you look from outside, try to tell these two roofing materials apart. The same source says the building continues its original function with separate sections for men and women and is regarded as one of the largest thermal baths in Bursa. If you plan to bathe, ask in advance about the arrangement of the sections, the hours and the price, and get current information from the operator's official channels. Inside, keep your voice low, move around wrapped in a peştamal and do not photograph other bathers. The reused capitals and the marble edge of the pool are centuries old, so do not lean on them or leave belongings on them. When you have finished the day, you can return to the city centre on the buses and minibuses that run along Çekirge Caddesi.

Source: Bursa Alan Başkanlığı; DergiPark; Discover Islamic Art; Wikipedia.