Uludag cable car
The only thing left in Bursa I wanted to do was go up to mountains near Uludag, accessible by cable car. After a burek for breakfast, I took a 5 min shared taxi ride to the cable car station to find it deserted at 0900.
The signs indicated that opened at 1100 today and to my great surprise, I killed the 2h quite well attending to admin on my phone and getting some things from the pharmacy.
Despite not the first person in the security or ticket queue, I ended up being the first in the cable car. The others were families and dilly-dallied a little. Today, only the first section up to Sarialan was open but the foreigner roundtrip price was still TRY950 (NZD41) and they had the cheek to charge for the toilet.
The ride up to Sarialan took 20 mins. The forests along the way were green, then various shades of orange and then bare in the upper reaches.
At Sarialan, the village consisted of a few holiday or rental homes, an outdoor climbing facility and some shops and cafes. It was deserted and most places were closed.
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- Looking up the mountain.
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- View going up the cable car.
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- View going up the cable car.
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- Autumn colours on the mountain
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- Woods on the mountain.
This was a disappointment. Actually, it was a joke after the cable car rides and views in the Zhangjiajie area earlier this year. I guess it was hard to know in advance how wintry it would be up here and if there was much happening. This is after all the half-way stop to the ski fields.
After 20 min I took the cable car back down. I decided to take a slow walk back to the hotel, stopping at a lahmacun place for lunch. Today, I managed to get a different angle of the Koprusu Bridge in better light, which helped with photography.
Turkish Bath
Late in the afternoon, I went to the Demirtas Pasa Turkish Bath. It was TRY450 (NZD18) for the use of the facility. With Turkey getting more and more expensive, I thought I would do this one last time before it got prohibitive. For the same reason, added on a scrub and massage for TRY360 (NZD15). So much grey dead skin came off, it was embarrassing!
I finished the day with my first proper meal since arriving in Turkey. I hadn’t been very hungry and sometimes ate on the run.