On Marmara Island, the Avni-Jale Özken Marmara Islands Museum occupies a historic building that once housed a Greek girls' school. Restored and opened as a museum in 2023, it is the joint work of the Balıkesir metropolitan municipality, Marmara municipality and the Özken family.
The collection brings together archaeological and ethnographic finds from the island, along with objects on its culture from the past to the present. A section is given to Marmara marble, the island's famous stone, which the education ministry's page links to buildings such as Hagia Sophia, the Süleymaniye Mosque, the Altar of Zeus and the Dome of the Rock. School groups are asked to book ahead.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Balıkesir as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 4.9 °C in January to 25.7 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in January (87 mm) and lightest in August (5 mm). Long-term means for 1999-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
