Turkey Day 5 - Historical Ottoman Quarter, Archaeological Museum & fantastic local meal

Our last day in Eskisehir started after breakfast by fully exploring the historic Ottoman Quarter. It was a lot of fun and Grandma really enjoyed just walking around looking at all the old houses. A number of the oldest buildings are marked on our map and have a brief history which gave us a rough route to walk around.

500 year old Ottoman nobles house – love the tower.

We also found this neat bazaar, which had 2 levels of shops with lots of Meerschaum stones items again along with glass.

Robin dashing through the bazaar. 

Grandma and Luke outside some shops.

Too much shopping for Luke.

A number of buildings have been restored and look great and some are still ‘do-upers’ which were just as fascinating to look at as well.

Restored building in the town square.

genuine plastic horses as well.

Restored houses.

House needing working.

The nice local who sold us some gloves for Luke, with the snow and the cold he has been wearing socks on this hands, proper gloves will be good.

Park of the old Kursunlu mosque complex included a building now used to hold conferences, and they happen to have an international ‘Wood and Humanity’ show which we visited and there are examples made from wood from all over the world.

‘Wood and Humanity’

It was then back to lunch eating fresh bread again.

The afternoon was spent visiting the local archaeological museum which took a bit of finding as we had no map – but a kind local Turk walked us all the way there, the Turks are so friendly and helpful – a great people. Like everyone in Eskisehir he didn’t speak any English. It appears that Eskisehir is a town where Turks come to holiday and see the history and English speaking tourists are the exception which is actually quite fun. Grandma is getting used to ordering and buying stuff with people she can’t talk to.

The archaeological museum was really modern and very well done. It was not large but covers all the history in the area around the city, from stone age, through the different Bronze Ages, through to Roman times, and finally through to the Ottoman Turks. I got a really good appreciation of the changes in the area over the last 5000 years. The best way to get history like this is to actually look at items and see how the locals have evolved and the different Governments that were around over time.

Islamic headstone

Well carved Roman headstone.

Finding a new room to explore made Robin happy.

Griffin.

Stone age sling stones.

Julianne and Luke getting excited over spinning whorls .

Cool detailed looking little animals.

Really old glass example.

Early crosses.

Robin playing a tomb exploring game which he loved.

A Sickle, which was cool to see.

Great Necklaces from the Phrygian Period of 900BC to 550BC – which is the area I am keen to explore tomorrow.

Grandma was fascinated with computer touch screen with an old cup.

And then we found the original which was cool and it was tiny, only a couple of inches high.

Bronze age weapons from around 2000 BC

It was then a gentle stroll back to the hotel.

Responsibility for tea tonight has been given to Grandma – and she has selected a small restaurant overlooking the centre square in the historical Ottoman district – so a quick 5 minute walk and we are outside this nice looking restaurant but with no obvious door and we were just about to start finding somewhere else when the person from shop next door comes out and shows us into his shop. It turns out entrance to the restaurant is through the shop and it is a very small family run affair. We are taken to the top floor and take a seat. There is no one else around which seems strange the tables are all laid out as you would expect. Of course there is a language barrier – they keep trying to sell us the sirloin steak, after about 10 minutes going around in circles around steak we don’t want they bring in a laptop so we can use Google Translate. In the end we order meatballs in yogurt for Grandma and myself and chicken for Julianne and boy were they fantastic!, this is easily the best cooked meal we have had in Turkey.

Grandma and me in the local restaurant.      

Great local family decorations inside.

What a fantastic meal.

We were all blown away, here we are in this building hundreds of years old eating this family cooked meal that was just delicious in this atmospheric historical Ottoman quarter. Grandma has chosen very well, just like Julianne did last night. And a great way to finish off our time in Eskisehir.