Guide
Termal, 12 km from Yalova city centre, is a spa town in a valley on the slopes of Samanlı Dağı. The Yalova directorate of culture and tourism counts its springs among Türkiye's first-rank priority spas and calls it the country's most orderly developed spa area. A cascade known as Yedi Havuzlar marks the entrance to the thermal complex, and the grounds are known for their hydrangeas and rare trees: 39 kinds of deciduous tree, 26 evergreens, 25 kinds of deciduous and evergreen shrub and 18 climbers and ground-cover plants. Güney Park lies among pines, magnolias and other trees, and the plane tree known as Doğu Çınarı, in front of the Çınar hotel, is registered as a monumental tree.
According to the directorate, the springs appeared after a great earthquake around 2000 BC, and from the 6th century they were known as Pythia Therma, the baths of strength and power at Pythia, because the steam and hot water rising from cracks in the ground were thought to belong to a god of the underworld. The baths were first built under Constantine and restored under Justinian, gained importance again under Sultan Abdülhamid and took their final shape in Atatürk's time; Atatürk valued Termal, came often to rest and stayed for long periods. In 1892 the Ottoman medical society examined the water, judged it equal to that of Aix-les-Bains, and a hotel and bathhouse were built.
Excavations ordered by Atatürk in 1932 uncovered votive stelae, gravestones, a church with a tunnel, and columns bearing a Byzantine imperial monogram that the directorate dates to AD 565–578. Tradition says the church and tunnel served for confession and that the sick slept there to learn their future; the faintest whisper at one end of the tunnel carries to the other. Kurşunlu Hamam, built under Justinian and later buried by disasters and wars, was repaired on Sultan Abdülhamid's order and is named after its lead-covered roof, with an Ottoman inscription on marble on its outer wall. Valide Hamamı was built with six domes in the time of Constantine, three of which are gone; Sultan Mecid restored it, and it takes its name from his mother, who was treated here. Its steam room also carries an Ottoman inscription in marble.
The directorate lists the water as used for rheumatic and metabolic conditions, digestive, liver, gall bladder, kidney and urinary complaints, recovery after orthopaedic operations, and skin, psychological and gynaecological conditions. The Termal tourist establishments have 366 beds, and because spa water is piped to the Gökçedere area of Termal, most hotels and motels there can offer it to guests on their own premises. The resort is reached by an asphalt road.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Yalova as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 6.6 °C in January to 23.6 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (113 mm) and lightest in July (25 mm). Long-term means for 1931-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
