Before making a special trip: the Süleyman Pasha bath in İzmit is closed to visitors. Also known as the Yukarı Pazar or Dere bath, it was built by Süleyman Pasha, son of Orhan Gazi. It is a double bath with the usual cold, warm and hot sections, though the changing hall has been removed entirely.
What remains is a cold section at the front covered by two high domes, and behind it two private sections under low domes, passing into one another by a door; each of these divisions has three domes. To their north are the furnace and the water tank. The bath was damaged in the earthquake of 1999, restored by the metropolitan municipality in 2012, and handed over to the İzmit municipality in 2014. It is on Orhan Caddesi in the Akçakoca quarter, near the city centre.
Getting there
- Access
- Close to the city centre; reachable on foot or by the private public buses.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Kocaeli as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 6.3 °C in January to 24 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (108 mm) and lightest in August (42 mm). Long-term means for 1929-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
