We just spent a week house sitting for a family in a "small" city called Eskişehir, which literally means "old city". I say "small" in inverted commas because it's population is a little over 700,000. That would make it one of the larger cities in the UK (about the same size as Leeds) but it's significantly smaller than Istanbul (with an official population of about 15 million but probably considerably more unofficially).
Eskişehir is about 200 miles south east of Istanbul and 145 miles west of Ankara. If that doesn't help you visualise the location, here's a map.
Despite the name, it is actually quite a modern city in many ways, probably partly because it has two big universities. And partly because the mayor has put a big focus in recent years on developing the city and particularly the river that runs through the middle, so it has quite a European feel with pathways along the river, bridges and a tram system.
A city centre bridge over the River Porsuk
Other important things to note: it is 792m above sea level and quite flat. Why are these important? It is high (for reference, it's about the same height above sea level as the top of the Old Man of Coniston and 100m lower than the top of Cader Idris), which means that although it gets hot in the daytime in summer, the temperature drops significantly at night and the heat feels a lot drier than Istanbul. Which is really important when you live in Istanbul and weather.com is telling me that the humidity this evening here is going to be 80%. A week without feeling sticky at this time of year was such a luxury!
The flatness not only meant that we could do good walks without needing to walk up hills (always a plus with a toddler), it also meant that bicycles seemed to be quite a common mode of transport. This took me by surprise - there are so few cyclists in Istanbul (probably partly due to the hills and partly due to the fact that Istanbul driving is notoriously chaotic!) that I had naively assumed that pedal power wasn't really an established mode of transport in cities here. So it was quite refreshing to be able to see children out on the street on their bikes and old men cycling leisurely around (as well as a few people who seemed to use tramways as bike paths...).
We thoroughly enjoyed getting out of Istanbul for a week and I'm looking forward to sharing some of our experiences with you!
