Eskisehir is a city of around eight hundred thousand people in the middle of Anatolia, it has two large universities and consequently one of the youngest populations in Turkey, and it has gondolas. Actual gondolas, on the Porsuk river that runs through the centre of town, introduced by a long-serving mayor whose other projects included a wax museum and a park with a fairytale castle in it. It is the least likely city in Turkey and it is genuinely one of the most enjoyable.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, Roman Trail earns a small commission at no extra cost to you.
It is also the one destination in this guide where a merino base layer needs no argument. Eskisehir sits at about eight hundred metres on the plateau with a continental climate: winters that go properly below freezing with snow lying in the streets, hot dry summers, and the short sharp spring and autumn that come with real seasons. Visitors who have read about Turkey as a Mediterranean country arrive in February in a light jacket and regret it within an hour.
Odunpazari, the Modern Museum and the Meerschaum
Odunpazari is the old quarter on the hill above the river, a dense grid of restored Ottoman timber houses painted in strong colours, and it is on UNESCO's tentative list rather than inscribed, which is a distinction worth making precisely because a great deal of travel writing gets it wrong. The houses are the second photograph on this page, with snow on the street, which is how a good proportion of the year looks.
In the middle of that quarter stands the thing nobody expects: the Odunpazari Modern Museum, which opened in 2019 in a building by Kengo Kuma made of interlocking stacked timber boxes. It is a serious contemporary art museum with serious architecture, in central Anatolia, and it is the single strongest reason to come here that no guidebook from before 2019 mentions.
The other thing Odunpazari is for is meerschaum, lulletasi in Turkish, a soft white mineral that is carved into pipes and figurines. Eskisehir province is effectively the world's only significant commercial source of it, which means the carving workshops here are not a local craft so much as the global one. The third photograph on this page is a workshop flame. Buy from a workshop rather than a souvenir shop if you want the real thing, and expect to be shown how soft the raw block is.
Down at river level, the Porsuk is lined with cafes and bridges and the gondolas work the stretch through the centre, with pedal boats and small cruise boats alongside them. At sunset in summer it is the best hour in the city and in winter it freezes at the edges.
Sazova, the Thermal Baths and Cibörek
Sazova Park, west of the centre, holds the castle you will have seen in photographs of this city, plus a science and art centre, a small zoo and a scale pirate ship. It reads as municipal whimsy and it is extremely popular with Turkish families, and it is worth an afternoon if you take it on its own terms.
Eskisehir is also a thermal city, which matters more for this guide than it sounds. The Hamamyolu quarter sits on hot springs that have been used since Roman and Byzantine times, and the thermal baths and hammams there are a principal reason Turkish visitors come. That has a safety consequence covered below and a practical one here: take flip flops or sliders, take your own towel if you are particular, and expect the traditional hammams to operate women's sections or women's hours rather than mixed bathing.
And the food. Eskisehir has a large Crimean Tatar population, descended from nineteenth-century migrations, and the city's signature dish is ciborek, a large thin half-moon pastry filled with minced meat and fried. It is sold from dedicated shops, it is cheap, and it is the thing to eat here. Say ciborek and you will be understood; the Tatar spelling varies.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Getting There and Getting Around
This is one of the easiest cities in Turkey to reach, because the high-speed train stops here. Turkish State Railways runs YHT services from Ankara in around an hour and a half and from Istanbul in roughly two and a half to three hours depending on the service, and the station is central, which is the third photograph's subject in a different frame. For a visitor based in Ankara this is a comfortable day trip and a better one than most things in Ankara itself.
Buses are frequent and cheap from everywhere. There is a small airport with limited domestic service and almost nobody uses it, because the train is faster door to door.
In the city, the tram is the thing. A modern tram network runs through the centre and out to the universities and Sazova, it is cheap, and it covers almost everywhere a visitor wants to go. Buy a transport card at a kiosk. Otherwise the centre is flat and walkable along the river, and Odunpazari is a climb up from it.
When to Go
May, June, September and early October are the comfortable months: warm, dry, long evenings on the river. July and August are hot, frequently above thirty and dry, with the compensation that the students are gone and the city is quieter. November to March is cold. Expect sub-zero nights, snow lying, and daytime temperatures that stay near freezing in January and February. That is not a reason to avoid it, because Odunpazari in snow is the best this city looks, and it is a reason to bring the right clothes.
The student year shapes the city more than the weather does. Term time is when the cafes, the music and the atmosphere that make Eskisehir distinctive are actually running; in high summer a lot of that is shut.
Is Eskisehir Safe for Women Travelers
UK FCDO: the FCDO ADVISES AGAINST ALL TRAVEL WITHIN 10KM OF THE TURKEY-SYRIA BORDER, citing continued fighting across the border and a heightened terrorism risk, and notes that roads in Hatay province towards the border can close at short notice. Two further areas carry PERMIT requirements rather than advice against travel: in HAKKARI PROVINCE you must get permission from the local governor's office to visit areas near the Iraqi and Iranian borders, and MOUNT ARARAT in Agri province is a special military zone needing permission and a fee. Nowhere else in the country is advised against. On terrorism the FCDO states that terrorists are likely to try to carry out attacks, that most attacks have occurred in SOUTHEAST TURKEY, ANKARA AND ISTANBUL, and that attacks could be indiscriminate including in places visited by foreign nationals. EARTHQUAKES are the other national risk: many parts of Turkey experience them, they can be high magnitude, and a 6.2 magnitude quake in the Sea of Marmara in April 2025 was felt strongly in Istanbul. AFAD, the national disaster authority, publishes current seismic information.
The FCDO publishes a specific sexual assault figure for Turkey and it is the single most important thing in this section. Of the 4.27 million British travellers who visited Turkey in 2025, 29 cases of sexual assault including rape were reported to British consular staff. THE MAJORITY OF REPORTED CASES TOOK PLACE DURING THE TOURIST SEASON IN COASTAL RESORT AREAS, the crimes were often committed by someone the victim had met during the day, and A SIGNIFICANT NUMBER WERE BY HOTEL OR SPA STAFF. That last clause is the one that changes behaviour, because it is not the stranger-in-a-dark-street scenario most advice is written around: it means treating a familiar face at your own hotel, a massage booking or a spa treatment as a situation to arrange deliberately rather than casually. Ask for a female therapist and confirm it on arrival, decline a treatment in a room you cannot leave freely, tell someone where you are, and do not let a member of staff you have been friendly with all week become an exception to that. The FCDO also records sexual attacks on minors who used toilet facilities alone.
Read that with the geography and then with the thermal baths, because the two point differently. The pattern the FCDO describes concerns coastal resort areas in the tourist season, and Eskisehir is an inland university city with no beach, no resort strip and no package-holiday economy, so the resort framing overstates the exposure here. But the hotel and spa clause is national and it applies to this city directly, because Eskisehir is a thermal destination where the baths are a reason people come. So the concrete advice stands unchanged: arrange a female therapist in advance for any spa or hammam treatment and confirm it on arrival rather than accepting a substitution, decline a treatment in a room you cannot leave freely, and keep your room number private. The useful thing about a traditional Turkish hammam is that the arrangement you want usually already exists: women's sections and women's hours are standard, and asking which applies is a normal question rather than an awkward one.
Methanol poisoning kills visitors to Turkey and the FCDO has a dedicated section on it. People have died or been left seriously ill after drinking illegally produced local spirits or counterfeit bottles of branded alcohol, and the FCDO notes cases including in Ankara and Istanbul. EVEN SMALL AMOUNTS OF METHANOL CAN KILL, and it cannot be identified by taste or smell. Buy spirits from licensed shops rather than from a hotel minibar refill or a street vendor, be suspicious of unusually cheap branded bottles and of free cocktails, and treat a spirit poured from an unlabelled bottle as the specific thing to decline. The FCDO carries a separate DRINK AND FOOD SPIKING warning for Turkey, including the pattern of strangers approaching visitors to change money or to steer them to a particular restaurant or club.
In ordinary terms this is among the most comfortable cities in Turkey for a woman alone, and the reason is the student population. A city where a large proportion of the people on the street are undergraduates is a city where a woman walking, sitting in a cafe or eating alone at ten at night is completely unremarkable, and the social atmosphere is noticeably more relaxed and more secular than in much of central Anatolia.
The Eskisehir Packing List
A merino base layer, and here it is the whole answer
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women is the single most useful garment to bring to this city for most of the year. At eight hundred metres on the plateau the winter is dry cold rather than damp cold, which is the kind merino handles best: it insulates without bulk, it does not chill you when you come out of a warm cafe into a freezing street, and it keeps working when you sweat climbing up to Odunpazari in a coat. In summer it earns its place differently, because it stays wearable for days in dry heat and does not hold odour. If you bring one garment for Turkey that works on the coast and here, this is it.
A proper insulated jacket from November to March
This is not a Mediterranean winter. An insulated hooded jacket such as the Columbia Powder Lite II over a merino layer is the right system for January here, and visitors routinely under-pack for it because the rest of the country is milder. If you are coming in the shoulder months, a fleece mid-layer plus the base layer covers most days.
Warm extremities, which people forget entirely
Merino wool glove liners and a merino beanie weigh almost nothing and make a February walk along the Porsuk possible rather than endurable. Nobody packs gloves for Turkey. Anybody who has stood on a bridge here in January wishes they had.
Boots with grip for snow and wet cobbles
Odunpazari's streets are cobbled and steep, and in winter they are snowy or slushy and then icy. Something waterproof with a real sole is the right call, and insulated waterproof snow boots are not overkill in January. In the warmer months a grippy walking shoe is enough, because the cobbles stay uneven whatever the weather.
Bath things for the hammam
Flip flops or sliders, a swimsuit for the mixed thermal pools, and your own towel if you prefer one. Traditional hammams supply a pestemal, the thin checked wrap, and will rent or sell the rest. This is the one destination in this batch where that list matters.
The small things
Turkish lira in small notes, though cards work almost everywhere in a city this size. A transport card for the tram, bought at any kiosk. A reusable bottle: the tap water is chlorinated and fine for teeth and washing, and most people drink bottled. Layers rather than one warm thing, because the gap between a heated tram and a freezing street is the real temperature problem of a plateau winter.
Essential Resources for Women in Eskisehir
Emergency number: 112 is the single national emergency number in Turkey for ambulance, fire and police, with English-speaking operators available. Turkey operates a dedicated Tourism Police, the Turizm Polisi, concentrated in the main tourist provinces rather than here, so in Eskisehir the ordinary Emniyet police are who you deal with and the central station is in the city. You will need a written report for any insurance claim.
US State Department travel advisory: the Turkey advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/turkey, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.
Main hospital or clinic: this is one of the better answers in the last two batches, and the reason is the universities. Eskisehir has two university teaching hospitals, the Eskisehir Osmangazi Universitesi Hastanesi and the Anadolu University health facilities, plus the Eskisehir Sehir Hastanesi, the large state city hospital, and several private hospitals. All are in the city with emergency departments, and the standard of care in a Turkish university teaching hospital is high. There is no need to travel to Ankara or Istanbul for anything ordinary, which is unusual for a city this size in central Anatolia and is worth knowing if you are nervous about travelling inland. Pharmacies, eczane, are everywhere, a Turkish pharmacist dispenses and advises very widely, and there is an after-hours duty rota, the nobetci eczane, posted in every pharmacy window.
Official health authority: the Turkish Ministry of Health. There is no reciprocal health agreement with Turkey and private treatment is charged, so insurance covering treatment and repatriation is essential. The good news relative to the rest of this batch is that two university teaching hospitals with emergency departments are in the city itself
US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Ankara.
Official tourism authority: Go Turkiye, the national tourism board. The Turkish tourism authority is also where to confirm current museum opening hours, which matters here because the Odunpazari Modern Museum and the municipal attractions keep different days from each other
Winter here is a plateau winter. Sub-zero nights and lying snow from December to February, which is not what the rest of Turkey does.
The high-speed train makes this a day trip from Ankara. About an hour and a half, and the station is central.
Solo women safety assessment: Eskisehir is among the most comfortable cities in Turkey for a woman travelling alone, and the reason is demographic rather than anything the city has arranged. Two large universities give it one of the youngest populations in the country, which means the streets, the cafes and the riverside at night are full of students, a woman alone is entirely unremarkable in any of those settings, and the social atmosphere is noticeably more relaxed and more secular than in much of central Anatolia. Dress is ordinary European city dress and nothing is expected of a visitor beyond covering shoulders and hair inside a mosque, where a scarf is lent at the door. Some Turkish helps because English is less widely spoken than on the coast, and the student population is the part most likely to speak it. THE ONE PIECE OF REAL CARE IS THE SPA AND HAMMAM CLAUSE. The FCDO records that of 4.27 million British travellers to Turkey in 2025, 29 sexual assaults including rape were reported to consular staff, that the majority took place in coastal resort areas, and that A SIGNIFICANT NUMBER WERE BY HOTEL OR SPA STAFF. The resort half of that does not describe this city; the hotel and spa half does, because Eskisehir is a thermal destination and the baths are a reason people come. Arrange a female therapist in advance and confirm it on arrival, decline a treatment in a room you cannot leave freely, keep your room number private, and use the women's sections and women's hours that traditional hammams already operate rather than avoiding the experience. Never leave a drink unattended and note the methanol warning, which applies to cheap spirits across Turkey. THE LARGEST NON-CRIME RISK IS THE COLD, which sounds mild and is the thing that actually catches people: sub-zero plateau nights, icy cobbles on a steep hill in Odunpazari, and a city most visitors have packed for as though it were Antalya. 112 is the emergency number and two university teaching hospitals are in the city.
Reading On
Start with the Turkey travel guide for women and the Turkey packing list for the country-level advice on costs, transport, dress and the regions. The natural pairing is the Ankara packing list, because the high-speed train makes this city an easy day trip from the capital and the two are the obvious inland combination. For the Aegean coast counterpart to this post, the Alacati packing list covers the stone village that is the opposite of this city in climate and in character, and both were rescued from the same tool defect on the same day. For the other inland Anatolian city in this library, read the Konya packing list, which is more conservative in character and makes an instructive contrast with a university town. On the coast, where Turkey is an entirely different country to pack for, the Izmir packing list, the Bodrum packing list and the Antalya packing list, and for the other thermal city with the same hammam advice, the Bursa packing list. For why merino rather than cotton or synthetic in a dry continental winter, which is the climate it was actually designed for, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
