Bursa claimed the title of Ottoman capital in 1335, six decades before Constantinople fell to Mehmed II. The green-domed mosques, tiled mausoleums, and caravanserais that Sultan Orhan commissioned still anchor the modern city's skyline, earning Bursa its nickname Yeşil Bursa — the Green City. The UNESCO-listed külliye complex at Yeşil Camii combines prayer hall, medrese, and imaret under a single geometric canopy, its turquoise Iznik tiles manufactured in workshops that vanished by the seventeenth century. Bursa's silk trade once fed European looms from Venice to Lyon; the Koza Han courtyard, built in 1491, still shelters cocoon merchants beneath two-storey timber galleries every spring. Today, a Bursa day trip from Istanbul appeals to visitors seeking Ottoman architecture without the crowds that descend on Topkapı and Sultanahmet. Departure coaches leave European-side hotels between 07:00 and 08:00, crossing the Marmara via the Osmangazi Bridge — at 2,682 metres, the fourth-longest suspension span on earth when it opened in 2016. The drive to Bursa's historic core takes two and a half hours, arriving in time for mid-morning light on the Grand Mosque's twenty domes. Most itineraries include the Uludağ cable car, which climbs 1,635 vertical metres in twenty-two minutes, depositing passengers at alpine stations where ski resorts hibernate through summer and hikers traverse meadows thick with wild thyme. The city's culinary identity revolves around İskender kebap — thinly shaved lamb over pide bread, drenched in tomato sauce and brown butter — invented here in 1867 by İskender Efendi. His great-grandson still operates the original restaurant on Ünlü Caddesi. Lunch is typically included in guided Bursa tours, served at venues near the silk bazaar or in Uludağ's foothills. Return departures begin around 17:00, with coaches arriving back in Istanbul by 20:00, making the excursion a feasible twelve-hour round trip for travellers based in Sultanahmet or Taksim.