Mudanya

Mudanya (Mudania, Greek: τα Μουδανιά [Pl.]) (the site of ancient Apamea Myrlea), is a town and district of Bursa Province in the Marmara region of Turkey. It is located on the Gulf of Gemlik, part of the south coast of the Sea of Marmara. As of 1911, it was connected with Bursa by a railway and a carriage road, and with Istanbul by steamers. Mudanya has only an open anchorage usable in calm weather. The town produces olive oil and there is a pier used by local fishing and cargo boats.
The town was the signing place of the Armistice of Mudanya between Turkey, Italy, France and Britain on October 11, 1922, following the Turkish War of Independence.
After the Treaty of Lausanne, the Greek population of the town was transferred into mainland Greece, establishing a settlement in which they gave the name of their previous city, Nea Moudania (New Moudania, Chalkidiki peninsula, Macedonia). Some Greek-speaking Muslims from Crete settled in turn in Mudanya.

 Building where the Armistice of Mudanya was signed.

Iznik

Iznik (Turkish: İznik), formerly Nicaea (Greek: Νίκαια), is a town and an administrative district in the Province of Bursa, Turkey. The town lies in a fertile basin at the eastern end of Lake İznik, bounded by ranges of hills to the north and south. As the crow flies the town is only 90 km southeast of Istanbul but by road it is 200 km around the Gulf of Izmit. It is 80 km by road from Bursa.
The town is situated with its west wall rising from the lake itself, providing both protection from siege from that direction, as well as a source of supplies which would be difficult to cut off. The lake is large enough that it cannot be blockaded from the land easily, and the city was large enough to make any attempt to reach the harbour from shore-based siege weapons very difficult.
The city was surrounded on all sides by 5 km (3 mi) of walls about 10 m (33 ft) high. These were in turn surrounded by a double ditch on the land portions, and also include over 100 towers in various locations. Large gates on the three landbound sides of the walls provided the only entrance to the city.
Today the walls are pierced in many places for roads, but much of the early work survives and as a result it is a major tourist destination. The town has a population of about 15,000. It has been a district center of Bursa Province since 1930. It was in the district of Kocaeli between 1923–1927 and was a township of Yenişehir (bounded to Bilecik before 1926) district between 1927-1930.
The town was an important producer of highly decorated fritware vessels and tiles in the 16th and 17th centuries.
  
Iznik Pottery

The town became a major center with the creation of a local faïence pottery-making industry during the Ottoman period in the 17th century (known as the İznik Çini, Çin meaning China in – Chinese porcelain stood in great favour with the Sultans.) Iznik tiles were used to decorate many of the mosques in Istanbul designed by Mimar Sinan. However, this industry also moved to Istanbul, and İznik became a mainly agricultural minor town in the area when a major railway bypassed it in the 19th century. Currently the style of pottery referred to as the İznik Çini is to some extent produced locally, but mainly in Kütahya, where the quality – which was in decline – has been restored to its former glory.

Karagöz and Hacivat

Karagöz (meaning blackeye in Turkish) and Hacivat ( shortened in time from "Haci Cevat" meaning "Cevat the Pilgrim", and also sometimes written as Hacivad) are the lead characters of the traditional Turkish shadow play, popularized during the Ottoman period. The central theme of the plays are the contrasting interaction between the two main characters. They are perfect foils of each other: Karagöz represents the illiterate but straightforward public, whereas Hacivat belongs to the educated class, speaking Ottoman Turkish and using a poetical and literary language. Although Karagöz has definitely been intended to be the more popular character with the Turkish peasantry, Hacivat is always the one with a level head. Though Karagöz always outdoes Hacivat’s superior education with his “native wit,” he is also very impulsive and his never-ending deluge of get-rich-quick schemes always results in failure. Hacivat continually attempts to “domesticate” Karagöz, but never makes progress. According to Turkish dramaturge Kırlı, Hacivat emphasizes the upper body with his refined manners and aloof disposition, while Karagöz is more representational of “the lower body with eating, cursing, defecation and the phallus." Karagöz-Hacivat plays are especially associated with Ramadan. Until the rise of radio and film, it was one of the most popular forms of entertainment in Turkey. It survives today mainly in a toned-down form intended for audiences of children.

When the plays were first performed is unclear. Some believe that the first Karagöz-Hacivat play was performed for Sultan Selim I (reigned 1512–1520) in Egypt after his conquest of the country in 1517, but 17th century writer Evliya Çelebi stated that it had been performed in the Ottoman palace as early as the reign of Bayezid I (reigned 1389–1402). In the 16th century, Ottoman Grand Mufti Mehmet Ebussuud el-İmadi issued a celebrated opinion allowing the performance of Karagöz plays.
According to one Turkish legend, the first performance of karagöz occurred when a lowly commoner visited the sultan. Rather than simply making a complaint, as most commoners did, he put on a short puppet show to tell a tale about the sultan’s corrupt officials. The myth states that the sultan was delighted by the performance so much that he appointed the puppeteer as his Grand Vizier and punished the corrupt officials that had inspired the puppeteer’s tale.Another story is that the two main characters, Karagöz and Hacivat (alternatively spelled as Hacivad) were actual people. These two legendarily clownish individuals were construction workers on a mosque in Bursa sometime in the mid-1300s. Their silly antics distracted the other workers, slowing down the construction, and the ruler at the time ordered their execution. They were so sorely missed that they were immortalized as the silly puppets that entertained the Ottoman Empire for centuries..
Whether these stories have any truth or not, the roots of karagöz stretch back to the unlikeliest of places; the island of Java. Javanese wayang, literally meaning “shadow,” is a form of shadow puppetry that dates back to 930 CE. These ornate shadow puppets, easy to transport due to their flat shape, were brought to the Middle East by Arab merchants and were adopted by the Egyptians, who practiced the art sporadically and without much convention for a few centuries. In the year 1517, Egypt was conquered and absorbed into the Ottoman Empire. The last Mameluke ruler, Selim Tumanbay, was overthrown by Sultan Selim I and executed. Selim I later chanced upon an Egyptian shadow puppet performance that recounted the entire execution (even including the fact that the rope broke twice.) Selim I, impressed by the performance, repaid the talented puppeteer by awarding him with 80 gold pieces and ordering him to travel with the royal caravan to Istanbul, where he would repeat the performance for his son. This gesture meant that Egyptian shadow theatre was officially adopted as Turkish entertainment—shadow puppet players then entertained the Ottoman royal court for years afterward.
Karagöz can be deceitful, lewd, and even violent. Other characters in these plays are the drunkard Tuzsuz Deli Bekir with his wine bottle, the long-necked Uzun Efe, the opium addict Kanbur Tiryaki with his pipe, Altı Kariş Beberuhi (an eccentric dwarf), the half-wit Denyo, the spendthrift Civan, and Nigâr, a flirtatious woman. There may also be dancers and djinns, and various portrayals of non-Turks: an Arab who knows no Turkish (typically a beggar or sweet-seller), a black servant woman, a Circassian servant girl, an Albanian security guard, a Greek (usually a doctor), an Armenian (usually a footman or money-changer), a Jew (usually a goldsmith or scrap-dealer), a Laz (usually a boatman), or a Persian (who recites poetry with an Azeri accent).

Uludağ

Uludağ [uˈɫudaː], the ancient Mysian Olympus, is a mountain in Bursa Province, Turkey, with an altitude of 2,543 m (8,343 ft). It is a popular center for winter sports such as skiing, and a national park of rich flora and fauna. Summer activities, such as trekking and camping, also are popular.
In Turkish, Uludağ means "Sublime Mountain", but in colloquial Turkish, the older name Keşiş Dağı, "Mountain of Monks," is still used. In ancient times the range of which it is a part, extending along the southern edge of Bithynia, was known as Olympos in Greek and Olympus in Latin, the western extremity being known as the Mysian Olympus and the eastern as the Bithynian Olympus  and the city of Bursa was known as Prusa ad Olympum from its position near the mountain. Throughout the Middle Ages, it contained hermitages and monasteries: "The rise of this monastic centre in the 8th c. and its prestige up to the 11th are linked to the resistance of numerous monks to the policy of the iconoclast emperors and then to a latent opposition to the urban, Constantinopolitan monasticism of the Studites.". One of the greatest monks of the Christian East, the wonder-working Byzantine monk Saint Joannicius the Great, lived as a hermit on this mountain.
Mt. Uludağ is the highest mountain of the Marmara region. Its highest peak is Kartaltepe at 2,543 m (8,343 ft). To the north are high plateaus: Sarıalan, Kirazlıyayla, Kadıyayla, and Sobra.
There is an abandoned wolfram mine near the summit. The mine and the integrated plant, which were built in 1974 for 60 million dollars, were eventually closed in 1989 due to high production costs.

Uludağ National Park Turkey

The highest area in western Anatolia, Uludağ is easily ascended by car or cable-car. The park is about 22 km (14 mi) south of Bursa and is signposted from there. Bursa can be reached by road from Istanbul. The cable-car ascends from Bursa and has an intermediate stop in the alpine meadows of Kadiyayla at about 1,200 m (3,937 ft) elevation. It ends at Sarialan at about 1,630 m (5,348 ft).


Habitats of the park range from maquis on the lower slopes, through deciduous woodland and beech and fir forest to alpine meadows at the highest levels. It is a refuge for mountain birds, such as Lammergeier and other vultures, Golden Eagle and more than 20 other raptor species. Other high-altitude species include Alpine Accentor, rock thrushes and choughs. The area is also good for eastern specialities such as Isabelline Wheatear, and, at almost the most westerly points of their range, Red-fronted Serin and Krüper's Nuthatch. The dense fir forest holds Short-toed Treecreeper, Common Crossbill and Tengmalm's Owl, a rare and very local bird in Turkey, as well as the White-backed Woodpecker. The rare and local butterfly, Parnassius apollo graslini, is found on Uludag and the area has much of interest to botanists, with colourful pink primroses, Primula vulgaris var sibthorpii; Leopard's-bane, Duronicum orientalis; crocuses: the purple Crocus siberi and yellow Crocus flavus; and grape hyacinths, Muscari racemosum.

The Grand Mosque (Bursa Ulu Camii)

Bursa Grand Mosque or Ulu Cami is a mosque in Bursa, Turkey. Built in the Seljuk style, it was ordered by the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I and built between 1396 and 1400. The mosque has 20 domes and 2 minarests.

 The Mosque

Ulu Cami is the largest mosque in Bursa and a landmark of early Ottoman architecture which used many elements from the Seljuk architecture. Ordered by Sultan Bayezid I, the mosque was designed and built by architect Ali Neccar in 1396–1400. It is a large rectangular building, with twenty domes arranged in four rows of five that are supported by twelve columns. Supposedly the twenty domes were built instead of the twenty separate mosques which Sultan Bayezid I had promised for winning the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396. The mosque has two minarets.
There is also a fountain (şadırvan) inside the mosque where worshipers can perform ritual ablutions before prayer; the dome over the şadırvan is capped by a skylight which creates a soft light below, playing an important role in the illumination of the large building.
The horizontally spacious and dimly lit interior is designed to feel peaceful and contemplative. The subdivisions of space formed by multiple domes and pillars create a sense of privacy and even intimacy.

Islamic Calligraphy

Inside the mosque there are 192 monumental wall inscriptions written by the famous Ottoman calligraphers of that period. The mosque has one of the greatest examples of Islamic calligraphy in the world. The Calligraphy is written on the walls, columns and on small and large plates.
The mosque is located in the old city center of Bursa on the Atatürk Blvd.