Panorama 1326 Bursa Conquest Museum

About this place

On 6 April 1326 Bursa's citadel surrendered to Orhan Gazi after a long siege and almost no fighting, and the town became the Ottoman state's first capital. That is the single moment you walk into here. You stand at the centre of a dome 42 metres across while a painted scene wraps the full 360 degrees and carries on over your head: more than ten thousand figures of soldiers, horses and townspeople, with real three-dimensional sets in the foreground that dissolve into the canvas until you cannot tell where the earth ends and the paint begins. A soundtrack of running water, hooves and birdsong adds the layer that wins children over before the adults. Osmangazi municipality built it, opening the doors in November 2018 with a formal inauguration in February 2019. The painters were the same team behind Panorama 1453 in Istanbul, and the historian Halil İnalcık advised on the story. It calls itself the world's largest fully panoramic museum, which refers to the sealed-dome format rather than the size of the visit; the whole thing takes about an hour. Before the dome you pass a chronological gallery of sixteen paintings on the Ottomans' rise from a small principality to a state, from Ertuğrul, Osman Gazi and Sheikh Edebali through the six sultans buried in Bursa, and after it there is nothing left but the big scene. Signage is mostly Turkish, but the painting explains itself. Practical points: adults pay 30 TRY, anyone aged 14 or under goes in free, and the till is cash only, so carry lira. The Turkish Museum Pass is not accepted, since this is a municipal rather than a state museum. Wednesdays are free for everyone, which in term time means school groups. Closed Monday; otherwise open 09:00 to 17:30. It is indoors and air-conditioned, which makes it one of the better things to do in Bursa on an August afternoon or a wet winter day, it is fine with a pushchair, and Gökdere metro station is a five-minute walk. The location is half the value. The museum sits in the Kamberler park area below the Green Mosque, about 500 metres downhill from the Green Mosque and Green Tomb, so make it the first stop of the morning and climb from there. Without that pairing it feels like a deliberate trip for an hour's content; with it, it becomes a very good primer for the rest of the old city. If you already know Panorama 1453 in Istanbul you will find the same idea done with elegant craft and a calmer scene, and if you have seen that one and are not travelling with children, the Green Mosque alone will do.