Eskisehir

Bisected by the willow-shaded curves of the Porsuk River (ancient Tembris) and energized by more than a hundred thousand students at Anadolu and Osmangazi Universities, Eskişehir is one of Turkey's most lively, walkable and forward-looking cultural cities. Along the wrought-iron bridges and outdoor café terraces of Adalar and Doktorlar Caddesi, Venetian-style gondolas and electric riverboats glide past sculptures and street musicians right in the middle of the Central Anatolian steppe.

Fifteen minutes uphill on the southern slope lies the UNESCO-tentative historic quarter of Odunpazarı, where three hundred 19th-century Ottoman timber-framed houses painted in ochre, sky blue and terracotta surround the interlocking pine-beam cubes of Kengo Kuma's Odunpazarı Modern Museum (OMM), the 1525 domes of the Kurşunlu Complex and the Meerschaum (Lületaşı) Museum. Add the fairytale castle of Sazova Park, the 2,700-year-old rock-carved facades of the Phrygian Valley (Yazılıkaya), and UNESCO-listed Sivrihisar Ulu Cami. Start with our before-you-go briefing and top things to do in Eskişehir.

Eskişehir is the central junction of Turkey's High-Speed Rail network (Yüksek Hızlı Tren, YHT): sleek 250 km/h electric trains pull directly into downtown Eskişehir Gar in 1 hour 25 minutes from Ankara, 1 hour 35 minutes from Konya, and 2 hours 45 minutes from Istanbul (Söğütlüçeşme/Pendik), while intercity coaches arrive every 20 minutes from Bursa (2 hours) and Izmir. Inside the city, the modern Estram tram network connects the train station, Bus Terminal, Porsuk River and Odunpazarı using any contactless Visa or Mastercard. See getting to Eskişehir and how Estram trams work.

Visitors split their choice between two contrasting neighbourhoods connected in ten minutes by tram: historic Odunpazarı on the southern hill, where you can sleep inside a restored 200-year-old Ottoman wooden mansion or a five-star contemporary architectural thermal spa hotel designed around natural hot springs, and lively Tepebaşı in the flat river valley (around Adalar, Espark and Haller Youth Centre), right near the YHT train station and evening nightlife. Compare both zones in where to stay in Eskişehir.

Spend a morning exploring the contemporary art installations of OMM (Odunpazarı Modern Museum) and the cobbled alleys of Odunpazarı, watch master carvers shape white foam-stone at the Kurşunlu Complex and Meerschaum Museum, ride a gondola down the Porsuk River, visit the Yılmaz Büyükerşen Wax Museum and Glass Museum, see Turkey's first 1961 indigenous automobile Devrim, and take a day trip to the Midas Monument in the Phrygian Valley. Full list in things to do in Eskişehir.

Settled in the 19th century by Crimean Tatar and Balkan families alongside native Anatolian traditions, Eskişehir's signature snack is çibörek, half-moon turnovers of paper-thin unleavened dough stuffed with raw minced meat, onion and black pepper that puff up into crispy golden pillows in sizzling oil in fifteen seconds. Pair them with butter-drenched balaban kebabı, lentil-filled mercimekli bükme pastries, met helvası and warm boza. Read more in our Eskişehir food guide.

Known in antiquity as Dorylaeum and famous for centuries as the world's primary deposit of snow-white sea-foam stone (lületaşı or meerschaum) and natural thermal springs, Eskişehir was transformed over the past quarter-century into a model European-style city of trams, symphony orchestras, riverside parks and twelve specialist museums.