Historic Odunpazarı Houses, Atlıhan Craft Bazaar and Alaeddin Mosque

Rising on the southern hills above the Porsuk plain, Odunpazarı ("The Firewood Market") is the oldest inhabited residential quarter of Eskişehir (inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List in 2012). According to historical tradition, when Seljuk and early Ottoman settlers arrived in the 13th century to decide where to build their new town above the marshy plain, they hung pieces of raw sheep liver in two places, one down by the thermal springs and one up on these breezy hills. Because the meat up on the hill stayed fresh the longest in the dry mountain air, they built their homes here and sold timber from the surrounding pine forests in its central square.

1. The Best Streets to Walk & Yeşil Efendi Konağı

Over the past twenty years, more than 300 two- and three-storey 18th- and 19th-century Ottoman houses across 30 streets have been restored and painted in warm shades of mustard yellow, pomegranate red, sky blue, pistachio green and white. Start at the main square and turn into the car-free cobblestone lanes of Beyler Sokak, Arif Bey Sokak, Işıklar Sokak and Koca Müftü Sokak:

• How the Houses Work: ground floors have thick windowless rubble-stone walls housing woodsheds, kitchens and winter pantries around a private garden courtyard (taşlık), while the upper living floors project outward over the street on carved wooden brackets (eli böğründe) and bay windows (cumba) so residents could watch street life in three directions.
• Yeşil Efendi Konağı (Atatürk ile Bir Gün, Beyler Sokak): step inside one of the grandest 1890s mansions in the quarter, where Mustafa Kemal Atatürk stayed during the War of Independence in 1920 and which gained national fame as the filming location for the beloved historical series Kırık Kanatlar.

2. Atlıhan Handicrafts Bazaar (Atlıhan El Sanatları Çarşısı) & 1268 Alaeddin Mosque

Across the boulevard from the museum row stands Atlıhan, a reconstructed two-storey traditional timber caravanserai originally built in the 1850s for travelling merchants and their horses. Today, twenty-five open-door workshops on both levels let you watch master craftsmen carving genuine Eskişehir meerschaum (lületaşı) and blowing colorful glass figurines at direct workshop prices. Five minutes north in Alaeddin Park stands the 1268 Seljuk Alaeddin Mosque, the oldest surviving Islamic monument in the city.