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Balıkesir.
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Search this city by topic →Devil's Table Sunset
Climb the volcanic hilltop of Şeytan Sofrası, 8 km south of town, where the Aegean islands scatter below and the sun melts into Lesbos across the water — and photograph it.
Ayvalık Toast
Order the legendary Ayvalık tostu in the Tostçular Çarşısı — sujuk, tulum cheese and tomato pressed golden in a crusty roll — and photograph it.
Cunda Waterfront Fish & Meze
Settle at a seafront table along Cunda's harbor promenade for grilled fish and Aegean meze, watching the fishing boats and the Ayvalık strait glow at dusk — and photograph it.
Story and sources →Coffee at Taş Kahve
Order a Turkish coffee under the high ceilings of Taş Kahve, a 150-year-old stone café on the Cunda seafront with stained-glass windows and neoclassical arches — and photograph it.
Story and sources →Ayvalık Stone Houses
Wander the cobbled lanes of old Ayvalık, past pink Sarımsak-stone mansions with bay windows and bougainvillea spilling over Greek-era doorways — and photograph it.
Sarımsaklı Beach
Walk the golden sand of Sarımsaklı, a 7 km ribbon of turquoise shallows south of town where the Aegean stays warm and shallow far out — and photograph it.
Manyas Bird Paradise
Walk the lakeside boardwalk of Kuş Cenneti National Park on Lake Manyas, where pelicans, herons and hundreds of migratory species gather — and photograph it.
Sunset at Lovers' Hill
Climb to Aşıklar Tepesi, the highest point of Cunda, for a panorama over the red rooftops and Ayvalık bay as the sun sinks into the Aegean — and photograph it.
Story and sources →Ayvalık Islands Boat Tour
Board a wooden gulet from the harbor and cruise the 22 islets of Ayvalık Islands Nature Park, dropping anchor in pine-fringed coves to swim — and photograph it.
Taksiyarhis Memorial Museum
Step inside the restored Taksiyarhis church, once a tobacco depot, now a museum where painted-canvas icons and a soaring nave recall Ayvalık's Greek past — and photograph it.
Story and sources →Balıkesir Clock Tower
Stand in the heart of Ali Hikmet Paşa Square beneath the stone clock tower first raised in 1827 and rebuilt after the great earthquake — and photograph it.
Cobblestone Streets Walk
Wander the narrow cobblestone lanes of Cunda between weathered stone houses, bougainvillea walls and old Greek doorways layered with faded paint — and photograph it.
Story and sources →Zağnos Paşa Mosque
Step into the city's largest mosque, built in 1461 by a vizier of Sultan Mehmed II and where Atatürk gave his famous Balıkesir sermon in 1923 — and photograph it.
Höşmerim Dessert
Order a bowl of höşmerim, Balıkesir's celebrated cheese-and-semolina dessert, at an old-city sweet shop and admire its golden crust — and photograph it.
Harbor Promenade
Stroll Ayvalık's waterfront kordon at dusk, past bobbing fishing boats and meyhane tables where rakı and mezes greet the evening light — and photograph it.
Taksiyarhis Rahmi M. Koç Museum
Explore the restored 1873 Taksiyarhis church, now a Rahmi M. Koç Museum, where the vaulted nave and preserved frescoes hold a collection of local history — and photograph it.
Story and sources →Olive Oil Tasting
Visit an Ayvalık olive-oil mill where century-old presses still turn, and taste the peppery green gold that made this coast famous — and photograph it.
Patriça Cove
Follow the pine-lined road to Patriça Cove at Cunda's northern tip, where clear turquoise water meets rocky shore and quiet nature untouched by crowds — and photograph it.
Story and sources →Sevim & Necdet Kent Library
Step inside the restored Agios Yannis chapel, now the Sevim & Necdet Kent Library, where stone church walls and vaulted light frame rows of books above Cunda — and photograph it.
Story and sources →Drink Susurluk ayran with a finger of foam on it
A registered product, and the register is about the method: yoghurt, water and salt, nothing else, beaten until the foam stands thick enough to hold on its own. Everyone on the Bursa-İzmir road stops here for it, which is why the town has more ayran counters than it has reason to. Photograph the glass before the foam settles.
Republic Square & Bazaar
Sit under the plane trees of Cumhuriyet Meydanı and follow the market lanes threading off it, alive with tea houses, spice stalls and daily bustle — and photograph it.
Çamlık Hill Viewpoint
Climb to the observation terrace on pine-clad Çamlık Hill above the city and take in the full panorama of Balıkesir spread below you — and photograph it.
Ali Hikmet Paşa Square
Sit among locals in Balıkesir's lively central square, ringed by cafés and the belediye park, and watch the everyday rhythm of the city — and photograph it.
Eat a Susurluk tost where it is registered
The tost carries its own geographical indication, separate from the ayran, and the two are ordered together by nearly everyone. It is pressed heavy and served cut, and the argument about which counter does it properly has been running for decades. Pick a side and photograph the cut edge.
Kuvâ-yi Milliye Museum
Explore the old town hall that served as a resistance headquarters, now holding documents, photographs and ethnographic pieces from the National Struggle — and photograph it.
Old Greek Houses & Ayios Yorgis
Trace the stone facades of Cunda's abandoned Greek mansions and the garlic-stone Ayios Yorgis church, remnants of the island's pre-1923 Rum community — and photograph it.
Story and sources →Fish Market
Browse Ayvalık's fish market where the night's catch glistens on ice, fishmongers call out prices and the smell of iodine hangs over the crates — and photograph it.
Find a Yağcıbedir carpet still on the loom
Yörük weaving with a registered name, worked in fine wool on a red-and-dark-blue ground, and the motif set is the point: it identifies the weaving group, not a taste in decoration. Sındırgı is where it is still made rather than sold. Photograph a carpet before it comes off the loom.
Eat the Ayvalık toastie in its homeland
Try the viral Ayvalık toastie, stuffed full with sucuk, salami, kashar, pickles and more, on the spot — and photograph it.
Taste Burhaniye olive oil at a mill
Burhaniye has its own registered olive oil, separate from Edremit's and Ayvalık's even though the three sit within an hour of each other — the register treats them as different oils because the groves and the pressing differ. Taste it unheated, from the mill, in the weeks after harvest. Photograph the first pour.
Stand in the marble the island is named after
The island is called Marmara because of the marble, not the other way round: the Greek marmaros is the same word, and the stone went into Byzantine and Ottoman building for centuries. Türkiye's first marble factory was set up here. The cut faces are white and squared off against the sea. Photograph the quarry wall.
Olive-oil tasting at sunrise in Ayvalık
Taste freshly pressed olive oil with bread and tomato at a producer's farm — and photograph it.
Board the Bandırma steamer that carried Atatürk to Samsun
The SS Bandırma left Istanbul on 16 May 1919 with Mustafa Kemal aboard and put him ashore at Samsun three days later; the original was scrapped, but a full-size replica sits on the waterfront of the town that gave it its name, fitted out as a museum of that voyage. Stand on the bridge — and photograph it.
Kurtdereli Mehmet Wrestler Statue
Find the bronze statue honouring Kurtdereli Mehmet, the legendary oil-wrestling champion whose name Balıkesir still celebrates each summer — and photograph it.
Buy the purple onion the peninsula registered
Kapıdağ mor soğanı is registered to this peninsula and it is sweeter and flatter than the onion you know, sold in braids at the roadside through the season. The peninsula grows it because the soil and the sea air here suit it and do not suit it fifty kilometres inland. Photograph a braid hanging.
Taste Adakarası where the grape is from
Avşa's Adakarası is a registered grape and it is grown almost nowhere else — a dark island variety that the vineyards here have kept going. Harvest turns the whole island into a working place rather than a beach. Photograph a bunch still on the vine.
Cross the Marmara from Yenikapı to Bandırma by fast ferry
Two hours across the open Sea of Marmara from Istanbul, past the islands and the Kapıdağ peninsula, and the ferry puts you straight on the Bandırma quay: it is how the Aegean coast has been reached from the city for a century. Stand on the aft deck as Kapıdağ comes up — and photograph it.
Eat a Havran black fig off the tree
Havran has two registered fruits, the black fig and the mandarin, and they ripen at opposite ends of the year, so the district is worth two separate visits. The fig is small, very dark and does not travel, which is why it is eaten here and sold dried everywhere else. Photograph one opened in half.
Spend a beach day at Altınkum on Avşa
Avşa is the Marmara island Istanbul goes to in July, and Altınkum is its main beach: a wide crescent of fine sand on the west shore, warm shallow water and a village of pensions behind it, with the sun setting straight into the sea. Stay until the light goes — and photograph it.
Look closely at Gönen needle lace
Registered needle lace, worked with a single needle and no hook, in motifs that used to carry messages a bride sent without speaking — which flower sat on the headscarf edge said what she thought of the household. It is done sitting down, slowly, usually by someone who learned it at ten. Photograph the work in the hand.
Sit in the Bigadiç thermal water
The district sits on one of the largest boron deposits in the world and the same geology gives it hot springs. The mineral water comes out of the ground already hot and the pools are plain, local and busy on winter afternoons. Photograph the steam over the water.
Try Mihaliç cheese where it is registered
Savaştepe Mihaliç is a hard sheep's cheese, scalded and salted heavy, aged until it is sharp enough to grate — closer to a mountain cheese than to anything sold as beyaz peynir. It is a registered name, so what is sold here under it has to be made the way it says. Photograph a wedge cut from the wheel.
Soak in the Gönen thermal springs
Gönen's water comes out of the ground at 80 degrees and has been piped into baths since Roman times; the modern spa hotels sit on the same springs, and the town is one of the oldest thermal resorts in the country. Spend an hour in the pool — and photograph the steam.
Birdwatching at the Manyas Bird Paradise
Watch pelicans, cormorants and hundreds of migratory birds from the observation tower at the national park on the shore of Lake Manyas — and photograph it.
Find Balya butter at a village counter
Balya butter carries its own registration, made from the milk of animals grazing the mountain pasture rather than a barn, which is why it is yellow rather than pale and why there is never very much of it. Ask at a village shop rather than a supermarket. Photograph a block cut open.
Eat the day's catch at the Bandırma fishing shelter
Bandırma is the biggest fishing port on the south Marmara, and the restaurants by the fishing shelter serve what the boats unloaded that morning: sardines and horse mackerel in summer, bonito in autumn, always with a view of the nets drying. Order whatever the waiter says came in today — and photograph it.
Swim at Ocaklar on the Kapıdağ shore
West of Erdek the peninsula road runs past a string of small beaches, and Ocaklar is the long sandy one, shallow and warm, with pine forest coming down to the sand and the Marmara islands on the horizon. It has been the family beach of the region since the 1960s. Swim out to where you can see the islands — and photograph it.
Walk the Akçay seafront at sunset
Akçay is where the Edremit gulf becomes a resort: a long promenade of plane trees and tea gardens along a shallow beach, with the Kaz Dağı behind and Lesbos on the horizon. The sun sets over the island. Walk to the pier as the sky turns — and photograph it.
Take the island ferry out of Erdek
Erdek is the mainland door to the Marmara islands: the boats leave its pier for Avşa, Marmara and Paşalimanı, an hour or two across water with the Kapıdağ cliffs behind and the islands rising ahead. Stand at the bow as the first island comes up — and photograph it.
Find the pool at Hasanboğuldu
The name means "Hasan drowned": a shepherd from the plain, the story goes, could not carry the sack of salt the mountain girl Emine set as her test, and drowned himself in this pool below the falls. Emine hanged herself from the plane tree beside it. The water is still there, dark and cold. Sit at its edge — and photograph it.
Swim at Ören, the gulf's blue-flag beach
Ören is the beach the Edremit gulf is proudest of: a kilometre of fine sand with a blue flag most years, water that stays shallow far out, and a promenade of restaurants at the back. It is quieter than Akçay and the sunset over Lesbos is the same. Swim out past the second buoy line — and photograph it.
Glamp among the olive groves at the foot of Kaz Dağları
Stay in a luxury tent among olive trees on the Edremit-Kozluyalı line; a local-herb breakfast in the morning — and photograph it.
Find the temple of Hadrian in the ruins of Kyzikos
Kyzikos was one of the great cities of the ancient Marmara, and its temple of Hadrian was counted among the wonders of its age; what is left lies in the fields at the neck of the Kapıdağ peninsula, with the amphitheatre in a stream bed and column drums under the olives. Walk to the temple platform — and photograph it.
Taste İvrindi cheese at the source
A registered cheese from a district almost nobody stops in, which is most of the reason to stop. It is made in small dairies rather than a plant, so what you get depends on whose milk went in that week. Ask which village it came from, then photograph the piece.
Hike Şahinderesi canyon into the Kaz Dağı
Above Zeytinli the Şahinderesi cuts a gorge into the southern flank of the Kaz Dağı: a path follows the stream up through plane trees and pools, with the canyon walls closing in and the water cold enough to stop you talking. Reach the point where the walls are closest — and photograph it.
Have a Balıkesir kaymak breakfast
Balıkesir is dairy country, and its kaymak — clotted cream skimmed off slowly boiled milk — comes to the breakfast table thick enough to cut, with honey and a village loaf. The breakfast houses around the clock tower serve it from dawn. Order it with bal — and photograph it.
See what came out of Kyzikos in the Bandırma museum
The archaeology museum holds the finds from Kyzikos and the Daskyleion satrap seat: Persian-era reliefs, Hellenistic marble, coins and a garden of sarcophagi. It is the only place the ancient Kapıdağ shore is laid out in one room. Find the Daskyleion reliefs — and photograph it.
Ride the 6 Eylül express from Bandırma to İzmir
A regional train has run this line since the 1910s: six hours from the Bandırma quay through Balıkesir, over the Kaz Dağı foothills and down the Bakırçay valley to İzmir Basmane, with the ferry connection timed for Istanbul passengers. It is the slow, cheap and beautiful way south. Take a window seat — and photograph it.
Drive the loop around the Kapıdağ peninsula
Kapıdağ was an island until silt joined it to the mainland, and the road around it still feels like one: 60 kilometres of cliffs, coves and old Greek fishing villages such as Turan and Ballıpınar, with the mountain rising to 800 metres in the middle. Stop at a village harbour on the north side — and photograph it.
Bathe in the Güre hot springs under the Kaz Dağı
Güre sits where the mountain meets the gulf, and its water comes up at 60 degrees into a row of thermal hotels and an old public bath. It is where the olive-harvest crews warm up in November. Spend an hour in the water — and photograph the pool.
Climb to Sarıkız on the summit ridge of the Kaz Dağı
Sarıkız is the peak the Tahtacı villages hold sacred, a 1,726-metre summit with a stone shrine on top where the legend says a wronged girl was carried up on the mountain's back; every August the villages climb it together. From the top the gulf, Lesbos and the Troad are all in view. Reach the shrine — and photograph it.
Picnic in the Değirmenboğazı gorge
Fifteen minutes from the centre the road drops into a wooded gorge with a stream running through it and the ruins of the old mills that named it; the nature park has picnic tables under the plane trees and paths along the water. It is where Balıkesir goes on a Sunday. Find a table by the stream — and photograph it.
Walk the necropolis of Antandros above Altınoluk
At Antandros, even good wishes became mosaics: a Greek inscription in the hillside villa's bath changing room wishes Margareites a prosperous life. Follow the visitor route on your necropolis walk; if the villa section is open, look for the inscription. Photograph a permitted detail and add your own good wish to your memory.
Story and sources →Find the Haydar Çavuş mosque above the Bandırma harbour
Built in 1874 by a sea captain and rebuilt after the fire that took most of the old town in 1874's aftermath, the mosque with its twin minarets is the one old building the harbour skyline kept. Stand in its courtyard with the ferries behind you — and photograph it.
Walk among the marble sculptures of Saraylar
Every summer sculptors from around the world come to the quarry village of Saraylar to carve the island's marble, and the finished pieces stay: dozens of them line the seafront as an open-air museum, with the white quarry faces behind. Find the one you would take home — and photograph it.
Buy Gönen baldo rice from a grower
The Gönen plain grows the baldo that Turkish cooks pay extra for, a fat short grain that stays separate in a pilaf, and it carries a registered name. In autumn the roadside stands sell it by the sack straight from the paddies. Buy a kilo at the source — and photograph it.
Taste Manyas kelle cheese in Manyas
Kelle means "head", for the round shape it is pressed into: a hard sheep's cheese aged in brine that the Manyas plain has made for generations and now sells under a registered name. It goes on the breakfast table grated or in thick slices. Try it at a village dairy — and photograph it.
Find the ruins of Adramytteion on Ören beach
The city that gave the gulf its name stood where the Ören resort is now; the excavations behind the beach have turned up a Roman bath, a Byzantine church floor and the harbour mole, and the finds sit in the small museum on the square. Walk from the dig to the water — and photograph it.
Visit the tomb of the bey the province is named after
Karesi Bey founded the Turkish principality that held this corner of Anatolia before the Ottomans absorbed it in the 1340s, and his domed tomb still stands beside the Zağnos Paşa mosque in the centre. The province, the district and the football club all carry his name. Stand at the tomb — and photograph it.
Walk the Alaçam highlands above Dursunbey
Dursunbey lives on timber, and the Alaçam mountains behind it are one of the biggest black-pine forests in the country: high pastures at 1,500 metres, log villages, and air that smells of resin. The highland road runs through it from the town. Stop at a clearing on the plateau — and photograph it.
Watch the boiling springs of Hisaralan
At Hisaralan the ground steams: dozens of springs come up near boiling point along a stream bank, some spouting, some bubbling in mud pools, and villagers cook eggs in them. There are simple baths, but the sight is the point. Stand upwind of the steam — and photograph it.
Land on Zeytinliada and its drowned Byzantine monastery
A few hundred metres off Erdek lies a tiny island with the ruins of a Byzantine church and monastery on it, some of its walls now under the water; excavations found mosaic floors and a sixth-century basilica. A boatman from the pier will take you across. Stand on the island's highest point — and photograph it.
Climb to the Bigadiç hisar above the town
The Byzantine castle sits on the rock the town grew around, a short steep climb from the market, with lengths of wall and a cistern still standing and the Simav valley spread out below. Reach the highest wall — and photograph it.
Find the Suçıktı falls in the Dursunbey forest
Suçıktı means "the water came out": a spring that bursts from the rock in the pine forest south of Dursunbey and drops in a series of small falls, with picnic spots along the stream. It runs strongest after the snow melts. Reach the top pool — and photograph it.
Walk the ghost mining town of Balya
For fifty years before 1940 Balya was the biggest lead and silver mine in the Ottoman Empire, run by a French company with its own railway, hospital, theatre and power plant; when the ore ran out the town emptied. The stone shells of the works still stand above the village. Find the old smelter chimney — and photograph it.
Kazdağları (Ida) trekking
A trekking route running through highlands and Scots-pine forests up to the summit — and photograph it.
Explore Bandırma Arkeoloji Müzesi
Choose an archaeological object and note the detail that made you stop.
Story and sources →
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