Van Morrison and Mozart helped me through the journey, as well as watching the harvesting and selling of honeydew melons, and later on the route, peppers.
For the first time on the trip we had rain, and I had the chance to wear the raincoat and overtrousers - what a thrill! I hate to take clothes across the globe and bring them back unworn. It seems such a waste...On the basis that we would need to take our shoes off in the mosque I elected to put flipflops on. Good decision.
First stop: lunch. Bursa, it turns out, is the true home of the Doner Kebab served Iskender style. Mr Iskender worked for the Sultan being responsible for sourcing the meat served at the Palace. When he retired he invented this dish:
Pide bread cut into small squares on a plate + slices of lamb marinated (secret recipe, of course) in sauce which certainly has tomatoes involved + on the side yoghort and tomatoes, then when served a boiling hot buttery sauce is drizzled over the top.
We went to the 'genuine' original restaurant which only serves this dish, has a queue outside, and only seats 40 people cheek by jowl. An exception was made for me: I had the dish minus the meat. It was absolutely delicious.
So Bursa. Now a city of some 3 million souls, it came to prominence under the Byzantine empire and when the Ottomans came to power and Byzantium faded, it became their first capital in the early 14th Century.
The Ottomans came out of Asia and were settling in Konya at first. Konya under Byzantium was known as Iconium, and is the origin of the word 'icon'. St Paul stopped there and it was an important Christian centre. The Ottomans were at first a clan with 16 main dynastic families, and a man called Osman broke away from the other 15 and set out to the West of Turkey ending up in Bursa. It was a centre of art of culture in the 14-16th centuries. Osman = Ottoman. It guards the access to the Sea of Marmara, so it's location is vital for security, and as a trading port.
That's the end of the lessons.
We hit the mosque first, an old and beautiful place. The Grand Mosque, aka Ulu Cami, is an early piece of architecture, and not as grandiose or church-like as the Hagia Sophia or Suleiman Mosques in Istanbul. It has a washing area for preparation for prayer in the very centre of the interior underneath a dome which casts very pleasing light down and around. Unusually, although we had to obey all the usual restrictions such as full head coverings, no legs showing, no shoes etc, we were allowed to go anywhere (except the pulpit and the men's washing area), and were free to take photos.
There's a lot of gorgeous calligraphy, although I have no idea what it says at all. It looks pretty!
Nahide says that the atmosphere is noticeably more religious of late. There were many many women in headscarves around the place, and a good number of women dressed in burqua and hijab. There were many visitors from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, wearing full head to toe black, no face visible. There were 'guardians' wandering about checking on behaviour.
After this piety, we hit the bazaar and the silk market. The bazaar is a smaller, lively more local version of the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. The Silk market is in an old building, two tiered, with a courtyard in the central ground floor area full of cafes. Along the top galleries are dozens of fabric, silk, cotton, scarf, towels, bedding and dress shops. Outside each is a hospitality table with people taking tea or coffee (often men waiting while their wives shop).
My group had dived into the fabric shops and I caught up in time to get the tail end advantage of some scarf bargaining. A couple of lovely scarves are now mine, not expensive, but good quality.
Also a short lightweight cotton robe for all of about £5, which I shall take to Spain.
Time for another smackerel of something, so Nahide took us to a specialist baklava shop, Gulluoglu, and we had a marvellous pistachio pastry called Katmer, served hot and buttery, with coffee.
Thus fortified we pressed on to the Yesil Mosque, aka the Green mosque. Here's the scoop from wikipedia:
'Mosque of Mehmed I, is a part of the larger complex (a külliye) located on the east side of Bursa, Turkey, the former capital of the Ottoman Turks before they captured Constantinople in 1453.'
The complex includes a cemetery which we had fun exploring before heading in to see where some of the early sultans were entombed. In the graveyard some of the headstones have turbans on them, never seen that before....
The interiors were utterly gorgeous, both in the Green mosque (early 15th Century) and in the tomb area where the inside is turquoise. We spent a good spell of time around there, and afterwards a bit of time photographing in the Silk House, an emporium of goods for sale, all the Bursa specialities plus anything else you might want to buy from Turkey. I didn't buy anything but did take plenty of photos of lamps.
By this time, 7pm, we were all dead on our feet and ready to check into our hotel, the Kitap Evi Otel, which is in the old city up on the hillside, inside the old Roman city walls. It's full of character (in a good way!). We only have one night here.
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