From Sazova to the Porsuk, the Parks and River of Eskişehir

Start the day at the park entrance, walking towards the pond and the Fairy Tale Castle. Sazova lies next to the New Eskişehir Stadium, spreads over an area of about 400 thousand square metres and is the largest park in the city. This was once an empty plot belonging to the Faculty of Agriculture; the park opened to visitors in the autumn of 2008, before it was even finished. In a park of this size you need to set an order rather than try to see everything, so first check that day's session times at the Science Experiment Centre. The centre and the Space House work in sessions, the doors of the Space House close once a session begins and latecomers are not let in. If your session is close to noon, give the morning to the open areas of the park.

Make the pond, of about 25 thousand square metres, your first stop. On its shore stands a full-scale museum ship, the structure children call the pirate ship. Behind the pond the Fairy Tale Castle rises with its blue towers; the provincial page of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism describes the park's fairy-tale world as a first in Türkiye. The path in front of the castle gives the best photograph in the morning light, while in the afternoon it gets crowded. Around the pond there are playgrounds decorated with fairy-tale characters, and some of them were built to be used by children with disabilities. Special installations were also set up so that children can learn about buoyancy and the water cycle through experiment.

Then walk on to the Japanese Garden. The garden was designed by Japanese landscape architects as part of the Japan Year in Türkiye events of 2010, and according to the provincial culture directorate it is the largest Japanese garden in the country. Do not rush here, as this is usually the quietest corner of the park. In the Esminiatürk area on your way you will see models, at a scale of one to twenty-five, of historic buildings that carry Turkic traces; the model of the Orkhon Inscriptions is among the most interesting.

When your session time comes, go to the Science Experiment Centre. According to the centre's own introduction, here you can listen to your heartbeat, lift a heavy car with the force of a lever and watch your skeleton move while you pedal a bicycle. The centre is open not only to children but also to curious adults, and the tours it organises are aimed at grown-ups as well. The provincial culture directorate presents the Space House next door as the largest in the country. The park also has an open-air concert area for 1,200 people and an amphitheatre; you can follow the summer evening events through the announcements of the operating institution. There is also a zoo and a large underwater world inside the park, so set aside extra time for them on visits with children. Excursion trains also run inside the park, and with tired children you can take one to the far corners. Towards midday, leave the park and take a bus or taxi to Kentpark, since between the two parks you cross from one end of the city to the other.

Source: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Eskişehir İl Kültür ve Turizm Müdürlüğü, Sazova Bilim Kültür ve Sanat Parkı, Bilim Deney Merkezi ve Japon Bahçesi; Eskişehir Bilim Deney Merkezi; Wikipedia, Sazova Bilim Kültür ve Sanat Parkı.

You reach Kentpark as a long strip stretching along the Porsuk River between the New Bus Terminal and the Gökmeydan neighbourhood. The provincial culture directorate gives the park's size as about 300 thousand square metres, while Wikipedia gives about 270 thousand; either way it is a longer and flatter area than the Sazova you saw in the morning. Do not plan a hurried programme here, as this stop of the route is meant for an early afternoon rest. First walk to the side of the park facing the Porsuk, because that is where the thing that made Kentpark famous lies.

On this bank stretches Türkiye's first artificial beach. The beach is about 350 metres long and, according to the provincial culture directorate, was filled with real sea sand. The ministry's promotional page describes it as a place built to give city residents who cannot get to the sea the pleasure of the seaside. Walking on sand in the middle of a city without a sea is the real experience of this stop, and a good chance to take your shoes off. Next to the beach there are two outdoor swimming pools, one of them for children, and the park also has an indoor pool. Since the season and conditions for using the pool and the beach change through the year, get current information from the operating institution if you plan to swim.

After the beach, walk into the inner part of the park and around the pond. According to Wikipedia, the park has a pond of about 20 thousand square metres with a small island in it. Rose gardens, children's playgrounds and sports pitches line the area around the pond. The path along the pond gives its best view at sunset, and the pond photographs taken in the evening light in openly licensed photo archives are a good example of this. The park also has restaurants and play areas, so it is easy to take your lunch break here. The ministry's promotional platform counts feeling yourself at the seaside in Kent Park among the things not to leave Eskişehir without doing. The park also has horse riding areas, which you may want to see if you have come with children. The best place to sit on a shaded bench and shake off the morning's tiredness is the wooded edge of the pond.

The last task at this stop is to go down to the river and wait for the boat. According to the provincial culture directorate's Porsuk page, scheduled boat trips run in both directions between Kentpark and Köprübaşı. The same page writes that Venetian-style gondolas also serve at Köprübaşı and Kentpark. Since departure times depend on the season and the weather, find out the times before you reach the landing and plan how long you stay in the park around the next departure. If there is no trip, you can cross to the city centre on one of the tram lines running towards the bus terminal and continue from Adalar.

Source: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Eskişehir İl Kültür ve Turizm Müdürlüğü, Kentpark ve Porsuk Nehri; GoTürkiye, Eskişehir'de yapmadan dönme; Wikipedia, Kent Park.

This stop begins not with a walk but with a journey. When you board the boat or gondola at the Kentpark landing, you see the city on both banks of the Porsuk from water level. The provincial culture directorate writes that six excursion boats work on the Porsuk, and their names come from the city's story: Nasrettin Hoca, Dorlion, Osmangazi, Anadolu, Midas and Yunusemre. During the journey you notice that the river roughly divides the city in two; Tepebaşı is on the northern bank and Odunpazarı on the southern bank. As the boat turns this way and that, watch the passages under the bridges and the shadows the riverside trees cast on the water.

Being able to make this journey today is a story in itself. According to the provincial culture directorate, the river was for a time polluted by the dyes of a textile factory and the city's sewage, and boat trips became a thing of the past. The Porsuk River article on Wikipedia also tells how the stream was for many years a place where household and industrial waste was dumped, and how the clean-up bore fruit in the 2000s. After the sewage infrastructure was sorted out and the stream was rehabilitated, the boating tradition came back to life. The Porsuk in fact begins long before the city; it rises in the mountains around Kütahya and, as the longest tributary of the Sakarya, flows for about 448 kilometres. After gathering behind the Porsuk Dam, it crosses the Eskişehir Plain and the city and joins the Sakarya near Polatlı. The Islamic Encyclopaedia also reminds us that this river was not always calm: in March 1950, during a flood that lasted twenty-four hours, the central and northern neighbourhoods of the city were left under the waters of the Porsuk.

When you step ashore at Köprübaşı, walk towards Adalar. Because this area between Şair Fuzuli Caddesi, Atatürk Caddesi and the Porsuk once belonged to a well-known family of the city, it used to be called Yalaman Island. When the riverside became a place for outings and entertainment, the name settled as Adalar, the Islands. According to the provincial culture directorate, there were open-air summer cinemas here in the 1960s, which in the following decades gave way to other entertainment venues and funfairs. At the end of the eighties the area turned into the promenade it is today, and until those years river trips by rowing boat were also made here. Köprübaşı itself is meaningful; the Islamic Encyclopaedia describes this area as the transition zone that links the newer business district north of the Porsuk with the traditional market to its south.

Take a short walk along the bank, as there are many places to sit and rest by the water. The ministry's promotional platform notes that in Adalar you can hear different kinds of music on street corners and suggests listening to the street musicians. Do not linger too long here, because the museum that is the last stop of the route closes early in the day. After seeing the museum you will have enough time to come back here in the evening light. Walking south from Adalar towards Atatürk Bulvarı brings you to the museum.

Source: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Eskişehir İl Kültür ve Turizm Müdürlüğü, Porsuk Nehri ve Adalar; TDV İslam Ansiklopedisi, Eskişehir; Wikipedia, Porsuk Çayı.

The last stop of the route is the Yılmaz Büyükerşen Wax Museum on Atatürk Bulvarı in the Akarbaşı neighbourhood. Walking south from Adalar, you notice that you are moving from the coolness of the Porsuk into the urban fabric that rises towards Odunpazarı. In the words of the provincial culture directorate, the museum stands within the City Museums Complex and is one of the museums of the Metropolitan Municipality. The English Wikipedia also notes that the museum stands next to other museums, so this stretch of the boulevard is a museum quarter. The museum opened on 19 May 2013, and sources describe it as the first wax sculpture museum in Türkiye. The Odunpazarı Municipality's guide presents it as a counterpart of the world-famous wax museums. The English Wikipedia writes that the museum's revenues were intended for the education of female students and students with disabilities.

Before going in, take a look at the building. In images in an openly licensed photo archive the museum appears as a three-storey mansion painted yellow; you will photograph its facade more easily from the opposite pavement of the boulevard. The collection is interesting less for the sculptures themselves than for the story of the hand that made them. According to the travel guide of the Odunpazarı Municipality, the sculptures consist of about two hundred works donated to the Metropolitan Municipality by Yılmaz Büyükerşen, after whom the museum is named. Sources give different numbers for the sculptures: the Turkish Wikipedia says 229 and the English Wikipedia 198, and the figure may have changed over the years.

Visit the halls in order. According to the English Wikipedia, the sculptures are spread over five halls, and one of them is devoted to Atatürk, his family and the War of Independence. The Odunpazarı Municipality's guide also writes that the sculptures of Atatürk from different periods of his life are a highlight of the museum. Another hall holds well-known figures from aviation, railways, the press, industry, science and sport, as well as actors and artists. In the hall devoted to historical figures you also see names identified with this land, such as Yunus Emre and Nasreddin Hoca. The ministry's promotional platform describes how portraits, staging and lighting come together in these halls, each devoted to a different theme. When you stand in front of the sculptures, pay attention to the facial expressions, the details of the clothing and the lighting of the scene, since the realism of a wax sculpture lies in these details. The last hall is given over to a personal exhibition of the sculptor after whom the museum is named, so if you are curious about how the sculptures are made, linger a little longer there.

Ask the attendants before taking photographs, because sources write that photography is not allowed in some halls. The museum is closed on Mondays and closes early in the day; for fees and current hours, check the provincial culture directorate's page or the museum's official website. When you leave the museum you can look at the other museums nearby or climb towards Odunpazarı. If you want to end the evening by the river, going back to Adalar is a short walk, and so the day that began in Sazova in the morning closes in the evening light of the Porsuk.

Source: T.C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Eskişehir İl Kültür ve Turizm Müdürlüğü, Yılmaz Büyükerşen Balmumu Heykeller Müzesi; GoTürkiye, Eskişehir Gezilecek Yerler; Odunpazarı Belediyesi, Gezi Rehberi; Wikipedia, Yılmaz Büyükerşen Wax Museum.