People still live inside these walls: the modern village at Gölyazi sits within some 800 metres of ancient walling, and examples of traditional houses can be seen standing on the walls themselves. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism notes that the walls may have served against flooding from the lake as well as for defence.
There are gates and towers here and there along them, the most important being the Simitçikale on the north, with another tower on the village square. Both circuits — the outer wall around the peninsula the settlement stands on and the inner wall around the island — show alterations made over the centuries with reused stone, so that Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman work run into one another in places. Gölyazi is at the western entrance to Bursa; take the metro from Nilüfer and then a Gölyazi bus from the small industrial estate stop.
Getting there
- Access
- At the western entrance to Bursa. From the Nilüfer district take the metro to the small industry area and change to the Gölyazı buses.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Bursa as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 5.4 °C in January to 24.6 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (99 mm) and lightest in August (18 mm). Long-term means for 1927-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
