The bath known as Orta Hamam stands in the centre of Bolu, and its inscription dates it precisely: 791 in the Hijri calendar, 1389, built for Çelebi Bayezit by the architect Ömer bin İbrahim. It is a double bath, with separate men's and women's sections. The walls are of rubble stone and the whole is roofed with domes, pierced by lanterns and small glazed eyes that drop shafts of light into the steam; the interior decoration is unusually rich for a building of this date.
The same architect built a second Yıldırım Bayezit bath at Mudurnu seven years earlier, in 1382, and a third, small one at Eskiçağa in the Yeniçağa district in 1388 — worth knowing if you are looking for a particular building, since all three carry the name. Bolu province has an unusual concentration of early Ottoman baths, including the Gazi Süleyman Paşa bath at Göynük of the 1330s, which the governorate describes as one of the oldest Ottoman baths still keeping its original size and plan.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Bolu as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 0.6 °C in January to 20 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in May (61 mm) and lightest in August (24 mm). Long-term means for 1929-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
