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Up Uludağ by Cable Car, from Teferrüç to Sarıalan
Cultural

Up Uludağ by Cable Car, from Teferrüç to Sarıalan

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Everyone who lives in Bursa has a cable car memory; the shortest and most enjoyable way up the mountain that rises south of the city has gone through the air since 1963.

Osmangazi, Bursa
Cultural
Radar Editör
October 15, 2026

About Trip

Everyone who lives in Bursa has a cable car memory; the shortest and most enjoyable way up the mountain that rises south of the city has gone through the air since 1963. The ride between the Kadıyayla and Sarıalan stations is like a twenty-minute lesson that passes through the vegetation belts of Uludağ, from the chestnut zone into beech forest and on into the firs. This piece is not about the mountain itself but about a day trip to it: boarding a cabin at Teferrüç in the morning, walking in the forest at Sarıalan at noon, and coming back down to the city by cabin in the evening.

The first cable car in Turkey

Bursa Teleferik is the first cable car line built in Turkey. According to Turkish Wikipedia, construction began in 1958 and took five years; the line opened on 29 October 1963, the day the fortieth anniversary of the Republic was celebrated. The Culture Portal gives the same date and writes that the line ran on the same technology from the day it opened until 2012. On 7 June 2014 it went back into service with its technology, infrastructure and stations completely renewed, and in December of that year the line was extended to the Hotels Zone. Today there are four stations: Teferrüç, Kadıyayla, Sarıalan and the Hotels Zone; the last is also known as Kurbağakaya. Turkish Wikipedia reports that with a horizontal length of nine kilometres the line is the longest cable car in Turkey, and that the longest span, between Sarıalan and the Hotels Zone, reaches 4,212 metres.

According to the technical notes on the Culture Portal, 144 eight-person cabins circulate on the line and cabins depart every twenty seconds. The figures describe the nature of the ride: in the old days there was one departure every twenty minutes in cabins for thirty people; now you board small cabins without waiting in line. Kadıyayla station stands at 1,231 metres above sea level, Sarıalan at 1,635 metres and the Hotels Zone station at 1,810 metres. The comparison the Culture Portal underlines matters for the day tripper: reaching Sarıalan by road means 36 kilometres and more than three hundred bends, whereas the cable car reaches the same place within minutes. Sources put this time at between twelve and twenty minutes; it is short if you count only the time in the cabin, a little longer if you count the whole journey including the stations.

Getting there

The line's starting station, Teferrüç, is in the Yıldırım district, in the Piremir neighbourhood on Teleferik Caddesi. The Culture Portal writes that Teferrüç can be reached by bus from the city centre; for those exploring Bursa by rail, the most practical way is to take a municipal bus heading for the cable car from around Heykel. Check which line runs that day on the transport pages of Bursa Metropolitan Municipality before setting out; line names and routes change from time to time. For those coming by car the station has a car park for 240 vehicles, but bear in mind that it fills early on weekend mornings.

For fares, operating hours and the status of services on the day, the only reliable address is the operating company's website. The cable car closes on planned maintenance days; the announcement sits in a visible place on the site's home page. Services can also stop in windy or heavily foggy weather. So the first task when planning a day on Uludağ is to look at that page in the morning.

First stop at Kadıyayla

As the cabin leaves Teferrüç the city shrinks quickly; below are the tiled roofs of Yıldırım, a little further the Bursa plain, and on clear days even the Gulf of Gemlik. The trees change too: according to the Uludağ page of the 2nd Regional Directorate of Nature Conservation and National Parks, Mediterranean maquis covers the foothills up to 350 metres, chestnut forest lies between 350 and 700 metres, and dense oriental beech forests stretch between 700 and 1,500 metres. Kadıyayla station stands right inside this beech belt. According to Turkish Wikipedia, Kadıyayla is the only settlement on Uludağ not directly connected by road; in other words you get here only by cable car or on foot. There are picnic areas around the station. Even in the August heat of Bursa the air is cool here; when you feel the breeze coming through the forest you understand how far you have climbed above the city. There is no need to change cabins, but it is possible to get off, wander for a few minutes and board again.

Sarıalan and the national park

When you step out of the cabin at Sarıalan you find yourself inside Uludağ National Park. According to the 2nd Regional Directorate, Uludağ was declared a national park on 20 September 1961 over an area of 11,338 hectares; the area was enlarged to 12,762 hectares in 1996. Turkish Wikipedia says 13,024 hectares; since the boundaries have changed several times over the years, both figures can be considered correct according to their sources. Seventy-one percent of the area is forest. The Regional Directorate counts 1,320 plant species in the park; 171 of these are endemic and 33 live only on Uludağ. The national park receives roughly 800,000 visitors a year and 200,000 of them arrive by cable car; half of the visits take place in the summer season. So the real season of Sarıalan is not winter but summer.

Sarıalan is, in the Regional Directorate's terminology, a "Camping and Day Use Area". There are twelve country houses serving in the summer season, a camping area for three hundred tents, souvenir stalls and open-air tea gardens. According to Turkish Wikipedia, the Sarıalan road and the camping area were built in the park's first decade, between 1963 and 1972; so the meadow where tents are pitched today has done the same job for sixty years. When you get off the cabin, first look up, at the peaks behind the firs: the summit as seen from Bursa is actually the 2,486-metre Keşiş Tepe, while the true summit, the 2,543-metre Uludağ Tepe, lies five kilometres to its southeast. Neither is visible from Sarıalan, but the ridge of the mountain stands before you in all its bulk.

The name of the mountain tells a story too. According to Turkish Wikipedia, Herodotus and Strabo wrote of this mountain as Olympus, the Mysian Olympus; in the Ottoman period it was called Keşiş Dağı, the Monks' Mountain; in 1925, on the initiative of the Bursa Provincial Geographical Society, it took the name Uludağ. A name given a hundred years ago is today identical with Bursa itself.

Walking between beech and fir

Sarıalan lies at 1,635 metres, that is, within the belt where, in the Regional Directorate's description, oriental beech gives way to the Uludağ fir. The Uludağ fir is one of Turkey's endemic tree species and forms very healthy stands here. When you start walking you notice that the ground under you is covered with needles and that the shade is darker and cooler than in the beech forest. The Regional Directorate has marked eight walking routes in the park; one of them is the Teferrüç, Kadıyayla, Sarıalan route that follows the cable car line directly. So someone in good condition can do one direction by cable car and the other on foot. A shorter option is the path from Sarıalan up to Çobankaya: according to the Culture Portal, in the summer months you can also go up from Sarıalan to the Çobankaya camping area at 1,750 metres by chairlift. The Bakacak viewing terrace two kilometres beyond Çobankaya is, according to the Regional Directorate, the best point from which to see the panorama of Bursa, the Gulf of Gemlik and Lake Uluabat all at once.

Keep your eyes among the trees as you walk. The Culture Portal and the Regional Directorate give the same list: wild boar, fox, jackal, wolf, badger, wildcat, squirrel, marten and the forest dormouse known locally as hasancık live in this forest. In daytime you will not see most of them, but the sounds of squirrels and woodpeckers are never absent. The large bird gliding in the sky may be a bearded vulture or a golden eagle; because the park is a breeding ground for these two species it counts as an Important Bird Area. The large white-winged butterfly flying over the meadows in July and August is the Apollo butterfly; the Culture Portal describes it as the largest butterfly species in Turkey. Do not pick plants and do not leave the path; most of the endemic species live precisely in this belt.

Seasons and timing

Uludağ brings snow to mind, but the best season for a day trip by cable car is the period from late June to early October. The meteorological data quoted by Turkish Wikipedia explain why: the annual average temperature is 14.6 degrees in Bursa and 5.5 degrees at the Sarıalan station; precipitation is 696 millimetres in Bursa and 1,252 millimetres at Sarıalan. Sarıalan is covered in snow around 110 days a year. Snow begins in October and continues on and off until May; when the Judas trees bloom in the city at the end of April there may still be snow at Sarıalan. Even on a summer day take a cardigan when you board the cabin; at 1,600 metres the evening chill comes early.

Set out early in the morning. On weekend afternoons a queue forms at Teferrüç and you meet the same crowd on the way back. The morning light is also better for photographing the city from the cabin; in the afternoon haze settles over the plain. If you come in winter, snow boots are essential at Sarıalan; the camping area is closed in winter and the walking paths are covered with snow.

Practical notes

Those who want to continue to the Hotels Zone can carry on from Sarıalan in the same cabin; according to the Culture Portal the seven-kilometre road between Sarıalan and the Hotels Zone can also be covered by minibus. For a day trip Sarıalan is enough; the zone with the hotels is for winter sports. For those coming by road, the distances given by the Regional Directorate are as follows: 22 kilometres from Bursa to the Karabelen entrance gate, and from the gate 3 kilometres to Kirazlıyayla, 10 to Sarıalan and 11 to the Hotels Zone. Along this road there are day-use picnic areas at Kirazlıyayla and Karabelen.

The stalls at Sarıalan are open in the summer season; still, carry water and a small snack with you. Leaving litter, lighting fires and damaging trees are forbidden in the park; camping is allowed only in the designated areas. Those who come with a dog should keep it on a lead on the path. Find out the time of the last cabin in advance for the way back; you do not want to be stranded at Sarıalan on a line whose services end in the evening hours. The Sarıalan and Çobankaya camping areas inside the national park belong to the Regional Directorate; those who want to stay there should learn the current conditions from that institution.

The cable car is Bursa's oldest bridge between the city and the mountain. For more than sixty years it has climbed the same slope, and on every climb it shows the same thing: right above the city, half an hour away, there is a completely different climate and a completely different forest.

Sources

Location - Up Uludağ by Cable Car, from Teferrüç to Sarıalan

Trip Info
CityOsmangazi, Bursa
TypeCultural
DateOctober 15, 2026
SourceRadar Editör
Radar TürkiyeAuthorRadar TürkiyeVisit SourceGet Directions