For a planned outing one weekend in Eskişehir, we took some bikes from a rental shop and cycled across the town to one of the parks around the city. Unfortunately, the bikes were not the best and it would have been a good idea to take some gloves along as most of the other students did, and of course the members of the cyclist club that joined, due to the single digit temperatures! But the sun was out, and it soon warmed up enough.

The park is reasonable far from the centre, rather inconvenient for a park, and perhaps some of the greenery was suffering the onset of winter but nevertheless it was an interesting trip, as having never seen the park before it was a good opportunity to find out what it offered. And ride bikes!

Well, for anyone that doesn´t know what Turkish traffic is like, it´s an adventure in itself cycling across any part of town, rather like trying to walk through the middle of a paintball game with no reflective vest. Great fun!

After reaching the park we stopped for a little while, just to walk around and take a look. Approaching December (winter is coming!) it seems most activities are closed. In fact some work is going on to complete a fairy tale castle and a science centre.

Ok, so the park is not perfect (doesn´t match the size, central and green nature of Hyde park in London for example). But it does look like a great place to go for some fun in the warmer months. Especially for children. There are many activities around, the narrow gauge train, artificial lake with zip wires, row boats and a life sized reproduction of the Santa Maria sailing ship Columbus used when he discovered America, the fairy tale castle, many play areas, and various restaurants. Of course it still has open areas of grass for those who just want to sit down and relax for a bit.

So here some pictures from the park. Objective: Return when it is warmer and relive childhood memories pretending to be Peter Pan on the ship!