Balıkesir travel guide

Balıkesir is a city in the Marmara region of Turkey. It is the seat of Balıkesir Province, which is also a metropolitan municipality.

The town is on the main trade route from Istanbul to Izmir, so it's been settled from antiquity. In Roman times circa 124 AD there was a hunting lodge and small town somewhere around the present football stadium. It became known as "Old Castle", in Greek "Palaeokastron" and in Turkish "Balukiser", and grew into the provincial capital. Very little remains of these times, as in 1898 there was a devastating earthquake, so what you see now is mostly modern. The area is hilly but fertile, so Balıkesir has industries based on dairy, wheat, olives, sunflower oil and other agriculture.

Getting in

International visitors will find it most convenient to fly into either of the Istanbul airports and take overland transport or a ferry. Edremit Airport has been re-named Balıkesir Koca Seyit Airport (EDO) but you might wonder if "Koca Seyit" is Turkish for "nowhere near". (Actually it's "Corporal Seyit", the gunner hero of Gallipoli.) It's 100 km west of town, with daily flights from Istanbul and once a week from Ankara. The airports at Bursa and Çanakkale are just as inconvenient and sparsely served.

Getting around

Walk: most places of tourist interest are within 500 m of the railway station and clock tower. Local bus and dolmuş lines radiate from Eski Garaj by the railway station.

Wikivoyage contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0; excerpted.