In October of 2023, on a brief road trip from Istanbul, I spent an afternoon and stayed overnight in Bursa, while also visiting Cumalıkızık the next morning.

My time in Bursa allowed me to visit four of the WHS components, the central Orhan Ghazi Külliye, the nearby mausoleum of Orhan Gazi in Tophane Park, and Yesil Külliye and Yildirim Külliye. Visiting other components felt a bit of an overkill, but covering all locations looks possible within a full day or maybe a day and a half; distances are not insurmountable on foot but also not trivial away from the central cluster of sights; taxis are inexpensive.

Orhan Ghazi Külliye is dominated by the Grand Mosque, whose interior is among the most variedly decorated of all that I have seen in Turkey and quite unusually places the shadirvan for ritual ablutions inside the mosque proper. The khans - commercial quarters that essentially retained their purpose through the ages - are basically nowadays the extensions of the Grand Bazaar that is also part of this neighborhood.

Orhan Ghazi tombs are a popular pilgrimage sight, boosted by the hourly changing-of-the-guards ceremony that attracts significant crowds. Green (Yesil) Mosque and Sultan Mehmed's mausoleum, also called Green, combine into another impressive complex; located a kilometer or so away from the center of town means that they attract significantly smaller visitor footfall. Yet further away from the city center lies Yildirim Külliye, whose mosque fairly uniquely sports a portico, with its own sultan's mausoleum nearby as well as a delightful daily market.

I quite liked Bursa in general, a big enough town to offer a number of superb points of interest, yet provincial enough that it retains Turkish authenticity in greater measure than Istanbul.

Cumalıkızık visually has nothing in common with Bursa. It is a compact village that shows few signs of redevelopment over the ages. It is also decidedly a "show" village, where practically every door is a souvenir shop, and seemingly every resident is involved in the tourist trade. A lay visitor will find it hard to discern if any of the traditional Ottoman lifestyle remains beyond the few examples of food and drink (which, incidentally, you can find in Istanbul as well if you look for it); the endowment to a külliye, which provide the basis for linking Bursa and Cumalıkızık on a single WH property, is a bit of a theoretical concept in our days. Sloping street perspectives that suggest old but reasonably well-maintained, with splashes of color in many places, make Cumalıkızık an interesting if not entirely historically illuminating place to visit.

In the shoulder season, mid-morning appeared to be surprisingly tranquil and pleasant for an hour-long walk. Of the few defined points of interest in the village, I stopped by the so-called "Ottoman House", whose artifact collection projects the 19th-20th-century vibe, not without interest but also rather obviously not illustrative of the traditional Ottoman village dwelling. I also stopped by the village mosque, potentially indicatively for a rural house of worship sporting a flat ceiling without a dome. The time in Cumalıkızık can be extended by accepting an invitation to sit down for food from a local or stopping by the Ethnographic Museum. Your mileage for viewing it as either a traditional gem or a tourist trap will vary.