To the Home of the Ottomans

In March I took a little weekend trip to the small city of Bilecik (pronounced, roughly, Bee-leh-jeek), on the invite of my friend Oğuz.

Oğuz and I have been doing a language tandem since the beginning of the semester - he teaches me Turkish, and in exchange I teach him French. Bilecik is a few hours west of Ankara. We took a train to the larger city of Eskişehir, and then a bus to Bilecik. We then divided the weekend between exploring Bilecik and exploring Eskişehir, since they are so close to each other.

Bilecik is an old, conservative city, and proudly proclaims itself as the place where the Ottoman tribe - which would go on to successfully create the Ottoman Empire, lasting 623 years and, at its height, controlling Morocco to Hungary to the Caspian Sea to the Horn of Africa - first emerged. It's not exactly a tourist city, and doesn't even appear in my Lonely Planet, but that actually made it a cool place to visit. Oğuz's family was also super nice and super generous. His mother is a great cook, and made some delicious foods. His father is a musician, and even let me try out his traditional instruments. One of the evenings was also really fun - Oğuz's family was invited by some family friends for a dinner party, and we tagged along. The food was great, and it was fun to try to communicate with everyone in my broken-but-improving Turkish. Then, the traditional string and percussion instruments were brought out and everyone played and sang traditional Turkish songs. I even tried to join in, following the lyrics on a smartphone. It was a lot of fun.

Eskişehir, while being so geographically close to Bilecik, is in many ways completely different. It's a liberal oasis in a generally conservative area, largely due to the high population of students and a charismatic leftist mayor. I also found it to be well-designed, with lots of pedestrian routes and a decent amount of green space. Below are pictures of the two cities, and hopefully the captions will fill in the details enough of what I saw and did.

Bilecik. Some dilapidated buildings in the foreground and boring apartments on the right, but you can kind of get a sense of how the city is in a bit of a valley.

The valley below Bilecik, including the beautiful Ottoman Orhan Gazi mosque, built in 1392 (!!!)

Looking through the blossoms - Bilecik smelled beautifully - at the pretty Orhan Gazi mosque.

Graves outside Orhan Gazi mosque

The landscape around Bilecik.

A man walks slowly up the steep path from the valley below Bilecik.

The prettiest door I ever did see, Bilecik.

Decaying Ottoman splendour, Bilecik.

The inside of an old Ottoman administrative building, now converted into municipal administration.

Overcast skies do not take away from the prettiness of the coloured houses in Eskişehir

More bright colours on the streets of Eskişehir.

Pretty little plaques with the house numbers in Eskişehir.

Eskişehir

Narrow streets, Eskişehir.

The Kurşunlu Mosque, Eskişehir, built in 1525.

The ceiling of  the outdoor overhang of the Kurşunlu Mosque.

The old library of the Kurşunlu Mosque.

Minaret of the Kurşunlu Mosque.

Dilapidated old building in Eskişehir.

Huge mosque in downtown Eskişehir.

Eskişehir canal and bridge, a pretty area of the city to walk around.

A couple takes a self by the edge of the Eskişehir canal.

Because there is, apparently, demand for cat pictures in my blog - looking at you, brother Nick - here is a cat I saw in Bilecik.