A Weekend at Lake Sapanca
When you want to spend a quiet weekend outside the crowded city Istanbul, Lake Sapanca is just for you. The whole weekend or a vacation confined to one day, which is to be Saturday or Sunday, will get you out of the sophisticated city life and bring you to the beauty of nature. I will explain what to do for a day at Lake Sapanca.
First of all, you should decide whether you want to stay at Hotel or not. If you want to stay at an hotel, you should call the hotel at least one week ago and reserve a room. There are several hotels; a little research on the Internet will help you find one.
Secondly, you should decide by what vehicle you want to go there? By your car, by a train or by bus? If you are an active car driver, I suggest train. Your holiday just becomes a nostalgic trip. You won’t need to drive. You will get some rest.
Train from Istanbul starts at Haydarpaşa. After about 2 hours, and if you are lucky, you can get of the train at Kırkpınar. The train only stops at Kırkpınar 4 times a day. For detailed list of when it stops you can visit TCDD web site . If it doesn’t stop at Kırpınar, you will get out at Sapanca which is the next station. For this two hours of time at train, you can do many things. You can sleep, you can read magazines or newspapers etc. Some trains have tables in front of seats. If you think you are gonna eat something, these tables are realy useful.
Considering you arrived at Sapanca, you should walk to town center and find a minibus to Kırkpınar. After arriving at Kırkpınar now you can go to lake side and do tracking, or you can go brunch at lake side and get some rest after the busy week.
You can stay at an hotel if you like, or you can leave at the same day. There are two trains passing by Kırkpınar at evenings. You can get on one of them or, you can go to Sapanca and get on a more frequent train.
Getting some rest after a busy week beside the Lake Sapanca will be the most relaxing weekend you will ever experience.