It's warm inside

Some cold weather has arrived these days. Many houses use wood for heating, especially in the old part of town.

"in Bursa some streets actually most of them are very narrow especially in the town center..we have lots of cars and traffic so sometimes it is better to walk....you can see from the photo the cars,people old buildings and a tree trying to survive:)"

Sun Express

There is an airport in Bursa but the only airline that flies there is Sun Express. It is a joint venture between Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa. For the moment the only destinations are within Turkey - Trabzon, Erzurum and Diyarbakır. This poster is advertising seats at 49YTL (€22/$33).

Bursa has a lot of inhabitants from other parts of Turkey who came to find work, so these flights maybe let them visit their families more easily. Travelling to these cities by road would take well over 18 hours.

There are a lot of international businesses here though and the ferry to Istanbul is always filled with people travelling to the airport. It is strange that Bursa's airport is not more used.

Bursa as it is now

This is the modern day view of yesterday's photo of Bursa in 1977. The mosque is still there, although it's almost obscured by the road now. This was a quiet moment for traffic - usually the roads are a lot busier than this.

Bursa as it used to be

Many thanks to Elaine for this photo. It was made from a slide taken in 1977. Tomorrow we will post the view as it appears nowadays.

Cumhurriyet caddesi

""

Palm Trees

How nice to live in a place with palm trees around. Even if it gets quite cold here in winter so I am quite surprised they can survive.

Every kind of t-shirt

Another part of the covered market in Bursa. You can still buy just about everything in this market, it is more functional than the one in Istanbul which has become more of a tourist destination. The market is arranged into different areas for different goods - this is the clothes section.

Kafkas

This is one of the newer branches of Kafkas, maker of the cakes we wrote about earlier. This branch also has a restaurant and coffee shop.

Iyi Bayramlar

Next week is Kurban Bayram in Turkey and we will be back on december 15th. Iyi bayramlar!

Memories of summer

Another view of the Ataturk statue at heykel. It was taken a while ago but it's nice to see some flowers now that the weather is getting colder.

Hitching a ride

This photo isn't very clear (blame it on the dirty windscreen) but is the best I could get. This kind of sight is quite common on the edge of Bursa but I never seem to have my camera at the right moment to snap it properly. From the looks of it the sheep aren't going hungry.