The open pool in the snow
A spring-fed pool tuned to the weather; a January soak with snow falling around you is the best thing Termal does.
Annikat53 — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Oğuz Han Erol — CC BY 3.0 · Oğuz Han Erol — CC BY 3.0 · Oğuz Han Erol — CC BY 3.0
Water comes out of the ground here at close to 60°C and is cooled to around 40 for bathing, and people have been sinking into it for some two thousand years. Termal is a wooded valley 12 km south-west of Yalova whose oldest bath is credited to the age of Constantine and whose most famous one, Kurşunlu, was dug out of the earth and restored by Abdülhamid II in 1900, then roofed in lead sheets that gave it its name. At a spa competition in Rome in 1911 the water took a gold medal as the most curative of the entrants, a prize the management still prints on every sign more than a century later. Atatürk arrived in August 1929, declared the place the water city of the future, and built himself a small mansion that you can visit on the same outing. The complex is run by the Turkish Ministry of Health and the choices are few and clear. The open-air pool, shaped in plan like a Napoleon hat, is 22 m long with a shallow children's section, filled entirely with spring water and tuned to the weather so it stays open even under falling snow. Kurşunlu is the indoor bath with its own pool, sauna and massage rooms. Valide, named for Bezm-i Alem, mother of Sultan Abdülmecid, who came here for her rheumatism, has separate men's and women's halves. Then there is Sultan Banyo, 26 private cabins each with a marble tub and basin, and a row of ten family cabins tucked between Kurşunlu and the pool. Tickets are sold by time, not by the day: three hours for pool and Kurşunlu together, ninety minutes for Kurşunlu alone or for Valide, one hour for a private cabin. For Gulf and Levantine families one question decides the visit: the open pool and the Kurşunlu pool are mixed, swimwear only, swim cap compulsory. Anyone who wants privacy should go straight to the Sultan or family cabins, rented by the hour for one or two with a surcharge per extra person, or to the gender-separated Valide, which happens to be the cheapest bath on site. Under-sixes are free, the main paths take a pushchair, though the old baths have narrow steps. No booking is needed for a day visit, but weekends and summer mean a queue at the window and crowded water, and the price itself rises at the weekend. In August the heat drains the appeal of a hot soak; in January, floating in the pool while snow settles around your head is the memory people take home. Getting there is easy. Municipal minibuses run continuously from the Yalova ferry pier to Termal, about 20 to 25 minutes, and the drive is the same with parking at the gate. From Istanbul the ferry to Yalova takes roughly an hour, from Bursa it is about an hour by road, so many people fold Termal into a Bursa day or make it a day out from Istanbul. Leave time for the Atatürk mansion inside the grounds, the Lovers' Walk under the trees, and Sudüşen waterfall a few kilometres up the valley. If you stay at the Termal or Çınar hotel inside the complex, the pool and Kurşunlu are free for guests and Sultan Banyo is half price, which for a family of four takes a real bite out of the room rate.
A spring-fed pool tuned to the weather; a January soak with snow falling around you is the best thing Termal does.
Twenty-six marble-tub cabins rented by the hour for one or two, the natural choice for anyone skipping the mixed pool.
A small 1929 mansion inside the grounds and a waterfall minutes up the valley round the soak into a full day out.
Termal, 77400 Yalova
They are different animals. Bursa gives you old Ottoman hammams under a dome, with scrub and massage, inside the Çekirge hotels; Termal is a resort in a green valley with an open-air pool, private family cabins, a mansion and walks under the trees. For a family that wants privacy, fresh air and children in the water, Termal; for the authentic Turkish hammam with a kese scrub, Bursa. Doing both in one day is realistic, since they are about an hour apart by car.
The soak itself takes one to three hours, and the ferry plus minibus each way eats three to four hours of the day. It earns the trip if you pair the water with the Atatürk mansion, Sudüşen waterfall and lunch in the valley, or if you are heading to Bursa anyway. If all you want is a hot pool, a spa in your Istanbul hotel saves you the day.
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