Hello Local Guides,
Last year, I had an unforgettable trip to Turkey, which unfortunately, I couldn’t share a lot with my Local Guides family on Connect. However, I believe it is worth sharing more about this wonderful country.
Although I hadn’t planned to visit Türkiyesome time ago, my friend @JaneBurunina 's photos always made me crave to travel and see why she and Pavel selected Turkey for their family vacations repeatedly
Fortunately, I got an opportunity to visit Turkey with a group of electrical products dealers from Pakistan through a wire and cable company in Pakistan when we all achieved our sales target. So, over 80 people traveled together.
Even though I am an electrical product dealer, I couldn’t ignore my inner local guide while in Turkey. Therefore, I was the only local guide in this huge group and documented each and every place I visited there through photos, edits, and reviews on Google maps.
During our visit, I got an opportunity to visit Istanbul, Antalya, Bursa, and many other cities. But the most lovely place I found was Bursa. This was a day trip to Bursa on a group bus.
The departure time was fixed at 09:00 am, and I was there before time due to my excitement. So we started our journey just 15 minutes late, but the driver brought us to the first destination on time, which was the Negmar Ferry Terminal from where we had to reach the Bursa side Topcular Ferry Toll Booth.
During this bus ride and lots of sightseeing, we experienced crossing continents. Yes, you read it right, our hotel was on the European side of Istanbul, and then we traveled through the Bosphorus Bridge (Temmuz Şehitler Bridge) and entered the Asian side of Istanbul. It was an experience which I can’t express so well in words.
The ferry ride was amazing. We were on it with our bus, and we were allowed to walk around and buy some snacks, drinks, or water, or use the washrooms from the cafeteria on the ferry’s first floor. But I was more concerned with taking photos with my camera and mobile phone because the scene was worth capturing. There were a lot of ships and ferries on the sea and port.
After a while, we finally reached the place and continued our journey towards the Tomb of Usman Ghazi, also known as Osman Gazi Türbesi. I got really excited and had goosebumps when I entered the tomb because many important historical figures are buried there, who have made their names immortal in history.
Osman Ghazi, also known as Osman Gazi, was a great leader from the past. He was the first emperor of the Ottoman Empire, which was a big and powerful kingdom. Osman Ghazi was really important because he started this empire and his family ruled it for a long time. He was a brave and strong person who led his people to many victories in battles. People still remember him today because of the great things he did and how he made his empire strong.
There didn’t seem to be an entry fee to go inside. I was so excited at that moment that I forgot a lot of things. Inside the tomb, there were many graves. Among them were the graves of Usman Ghazi, his family, and other generals. I had been reading about them since my childhood, not just from books, but also from Turkish Series of Ertugrul that have become quite popular in Pakistan.
The interior beauty and architecture of the tomb are worth seeing. And outside the tomb, the guards wear traditional warrior attire that was specially designed for them centuries ago.
During that time, we witnessed the changing of these guards, who were following orders in a traditional Turkish manner with loud commands. Because the tomb was situated at quite a height, the view of the entire city from there was magnificent. The city looked like a cup surrounded by mountains from all sides. It was the moment when my love for Bursa began.
I’ve written a brief story of my journey to Usman Ghazi’s tomb, but it deserves more and the feelings that overwhelmed me were something quite different.
After that, the tour bus took us to a shop selling Turkish products. I think the tour company might have earned a commission there too. The products were nice, but I only briefly looked at the shop’s pictures and a review on Google Maps, as it was the beginning of my trip and I didn’t want to spend money on shopping at that moment…
Afterward, when it was lunchtime, we were taken to a famous restaurant called Kofte Yusuf in Bursa known throughout Turkey for its delicious food. There, an bad incident occurred involving some people who were on their first international trip. They weren’t aware of basic manners, like not taking pictures of others without permission. The trip organizers had a responsibility to educate such travelers about these things before the trip, especially those going on their first international adventure. Here you can check some photos and my review for this amazing place.
The food was truly scrumptious. We chose lamb meatballs that came with bread. The taste is something I haven’t forgotten till now. I would definitely recommend the "Kofte Yusuf ‘’ restaurant to anyone traveling in Turkey because this restaurant’s franchises are famous all over the country.
Our next adventure was reaching a beautiful scenic spot Uludağ Sarıalan high up using a cable car. The cable car fee was probably around 150 lira per person, which took us to the highest point after a roughly 30-minute ride.
Upon reaching the top, we realized we were in a completely different world. It was a place where, in the middle of May, between Istanbul’s changing weather, we had climbed so high. Here, we saw that the mountains were covered with snow that stays all year round. This caused the chilly air to make us happy.
Some people from our group decided to rent quad bikes and go for a ride in the jungle, which cost 400 Turkish lira. Others went to enjoy the Zipline. But my situation was different.
We stayed there for about 2 hours, exploring various places. I would even say that for an hour, I simply sat on a bench and admired the beautiful snowy mountains. This was a truly delightful sight for someone like me, who had come from a concrete jungle like Karachi to this place.
We returned from here via the cable car, cherishing the memories of all the beautiful sights in our minds and hearts as I made my way back with my group.
From the cable car’s starting point, our journey back to Istanbul began, which probably took around 3 hours. During this journey, I remember showing my Indian friends @NareshDarji and @TusharSuradkar some parts of the route from Bursa to Istanbul through a video cal
I fell in love with Bursa. You can imagine this from the fact that just after next week of my 1st trip ,I planned again to visit Bursa from Istanbul for another trip.
I’ll share details about that second journey in the next part of this post.
But one thing is for sure, if you go to Bursa, its air, beautiful views, the enchanting scenery of the valley, and the lovely people there will make you fall in love. I regret that I couldn’t explore Bursa to its full extent, but I still have the same craving to visit Bursa again that I had before going to Turkey.
Tagging my dear friends from Turkey to check this post, and recheck if I wrote anything wrong in it. @Gezendunyali @burakozkarakasli
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