Osman Hamdi Bey's former summer house is the most personal stop in Gebze. Hamdi Bey was a painter, archaeologist, museum builder, and cultural reformer; his best-known painting, The Tortoise Trainer, is one of the icons of late Ottoman art.
The wooden house is modest, but that is part of the appeal. It places a major public figure in a domestic seaside setting, with period rooms and reproductions that make Eskihisar feel less like a ferry stop and more like a small cultural landscape.