Bursa is stretched out along the base of Mount Uludağ, and so its main sights are laid out on a long, almost straight line. The Yeşil Camii to the east, Gazi Park in the center, and the wonderful neighborhood of Muradiye to the west. Even further east is Çekirge, home to the city's famous thermal spas.
Karagöz shadow puppetry, one of Turkey's most distinctive art forms, was born in Bursa. And the city is still the best place in the world to catch a regular performance. It might be the only such place. Every day, the Karagöz Museum puts on shows starring the puppets which have kept Turkey in stitches for hundreds of years.
Squeezed between two amazing mosques and the covered market, Gazi Park is the heart of Bursa, and was the logical place to begin our exploration of the city.
The neighborhood of Yeşil (Green), separated from the city center by the Gök Dere river, takes its name from Bursa's most well-known sights: the Green Mosque and Tomb. Visible from across Bursa, the mausoleum sits atop a hill and is covered in monochrome tiles of a unique light-green color.
Bursa is Turkey's fourth-largest city, and was capital of the Ottoman Empire a hundred years before Constantinople had even been conquered. It makes for a great excursion from Istanbul, almost directly across the Sea of Marmara.
