The terrace view
All of Bursa spread below you from the Grand Mosque to the plain, at its best an hour before sunset.
Three sultans and the founder of the Turkish Republic slept under this modest roof. Hünkâr Köşkü is not a palace in the Topkapı or Dolmabahçe sense but a two-storey timber hunting lodge in the French Empire style, put up at Temenyeri on the lower slopes of Uludağ to receive Sultan Abdülmecid on a visit to Bursa. The municipality dates it to 1844 and says Governor Salih Paşa finished it in nineteen days; some sources give 1859 instead. Abdülaziz stayed here in 1862 and Mehmed V Reşad in 1909, and Atatürk came four times between 1922 and 1935, which is why Bursa also calls it the Atatürk Köşkü or Cumhuriyet Köşkü. The metropolitan municipality restored it and opened it as a museum in 2003, and the interior tour is short and pleasant: original 19th-century furniture, hand-painted kalem işi ceilings, dinner services and personal clothing, Atatürk's bedroom and study left as they were, plus life-size silicone figures of Atatürk and the three sultans who stayed here, added in 2015; some visitors find them charming, others slightly out of place. Entry is free, the museum shuts on Mondays, and it is almost never crowded, even at the height of summer, which counts for something in a city whose bazaar and mosques fill with tour coaches. Here is the thing to know: the garden and the terrace are half the visit, or more. The lodge sits high enough to lay out the whole of Bursa from the Grand Mosque to the plain, and the garden holds a fountain faced in Kütahya tiles and a municipal cafe-restaurant that keeps longer hours than the museum, well into the evening after the rooms close. The best timing is an hour before sunset: walk the rooms, then take tea on the terrace as the city lights come on one by one. It is roughly ten minutes by taxi from the Green Mosque; you can walk it, but it is a steady uphill climb that does not suit pushchairs or older relatives, and inside a carved wooden staircase links the two floors with no lift, the lower one holding the pool salon and the dining room. Children tire of the rooms in minutes but enjoy the garden. If you have only one day in Bursa, spend it on the Green Mosque, Uludağ and the covered bazaar; Hünkâr is a gentle bonus for anyone staying two or three days, best on a clear spring or autumn afternoon when the view is at its sharpest.
All of Bursa spread below you from the Grand Mosque to the plain, at its best an hour before sunset.
The bedroom and study left as they were, with life-size silicone figures of Atatürk and the three sultans who stayed here.
A Kütahya-tiled fountain and a cafe that stays open into the evening after the museum shuts.
Mollaarap Mahallesi, Köşk Caddesi, Temenyeri, Yıldırım, Bursa
Tofaş Museum of Cars and Anatolian CarriagesThe oldest design here is a war chariot some twenty-six centuries old, rebuilt p8 min walk
Bursa City MuseumTurkey's first city museum was never built to be one: it was the courthouse. The11 min walk
Irgandı BridgeIt is a bazaar that happens to be a bridge, not a bridge that happens to have a 12 min walk
Grand Mosque of Bursa (Ulu Cami)The story Bursa likes to tell is that Sultan Bayezid I vowed to build twenty mos14 min walk
Koza Han and the Bursa BazaarSilk has been weighed and haggled over in this courtyard for more than five cent14 min walkWith a single day, no: spend it on the Green Mosque, Uludağ and the covered bazaar. With two days or more it is a pleasant, free hour, and the terrace view is the real prize rather than the rooms themselves.
The garden yes, the rooms less so: the approach is a steady climb, the two floors are linked by a wooden staircase with no lift, and children lose interest in the furniture quickly. Take a taxi up and let them run in the garden while you see the interior.
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