Gölyazı Island Village (Apollonia ad Rhyndacum) on Lake Uluabat

Thirty-eight kilometres west of central Bursa along the Izmir highway, a five-kilometre side road lined with ancient olive trees drops down to the shallow, reed-fringed expanse of Lake Uluabat (Uluabat Gölü / Apolyont Gölü), a protected international Ramsar wetland famous for white water lilies, pelicans and nesting storks. Jutting into the lake at the end of a narrow peninsula is Gölyazı, an ancient Greek fishing village built on a circular rocky island connected to the mainland by a single short bridge.

How to Get to Gölyazı Easily on the Metro + Bus 5/G

You can reach Gölyazı without a car using your regular BursaKart or contactless bank card: ride westbound BursaRay Metro Line 2 to its western terminus at Üniversite Station, and step outside onto municipal Bus 5/G, which runs directly down to the Gölyazı island bridge in 25 minutes.

What to See and Do Around the Island (Allow 3 Hours)

Founded in the 6th century BC as the Ionian-Hellenistic kingdom of Apollonia ad Rhyndacum (whose coins bore the emblem of a freshwater crayfish and Apollo's lyre), the entire island can be walked around in forty minutes along a flat waterside path:

• The 750-Year-Old "Weeping Plane Tree" (Ağlayan Çınar): standing right at the mainland entrance to the stone bridge, this colossal hollow Oriental plane tree spreads its horizontal branches right over the water and tea tables; local legend links its reddish spring sap to the tragic 1923 love story of Turkish youth Mehmet and Greek girl Eleni, separated during the population exchange.
• Wooden Rowboat Ride Among the Water Lilies (Saltanat Kayığı): step onto one of the colourful flat-bottomed wooden fishing skiffs moored around the island quay for a 30-to-40-minute slow loop out onto the calm lake. Between May and August, the boat glides right through fields of blooming white and yellow lotus water lilies (nilüfer çiçekleri) toward the uninhabited island ruins of the Byzantine Monastery of St Constantine on Kız Adası.
• St Panteleimon Church & Zambak Tepe Sunset Viewpoint: walk through the cobbled island lanes past two-storey red-brick Greek fishermen's houses to the restored 19th-century stone Church of St Panteleimon (now a cultural house), then climb five minutes up the grassy mainland hill of Zambak Tepe (past the remains of Apollonia's ancient stadium and sarcophagi) for the famous bird's-eye photograph of the circular island floating in the lake at sunset. Before leaving, try freshly baked pike fish (turna balığı) or lake carp in a clay tile at a waterside restaurant.