Bursa

An outstanding center since early Ottoman times, Bursa is now one of Turkey's more prosperous cities (due to its large car and textile industries) and is also a pleasant mix of bustling modernity, old stone mosques, buildings, thermal spas, and wealthy suburbs with vintage wood-frame Ottoman villas. Residents proudly call their City Yesil Bursa (Green Bursa)—for the green Iznik tiles decorating some of its most famous masterpieces, and also for its parks and gardens and the national forest surrounding nearby Uludag, Turkey's most celebrated ski mountain.

Bursa became the first capital of the nascent Ottoman Empire after Orhan Gazi took the city in 1326, and the first five emperors of the Ottoman Empire lived here until Mehmet the Conqueror took Istanbul and transferred the capital there. Each of the emperors built his complex on five separate hilltops, and each involved a mosque, a medrese (theological school), a kitchen house, a hammam, kervansaray, and tombs. It was in Bursa that Ottoman design blossomed, and where the grounds were laid for the more complex works to be found in the later capitals, Edirne, and Istanbul. More than 125 mosques here are on the list of old sites kept by the Turkish Historical Monuments Commission, and their minarets do for a grand skyline.