Tekirdağ

Hiking/Trekking – Mt Ganos to the southwest of the city offers beautiful trails through its forests and shrublands. Especially, the 20-km quite wide earth road on the side of the mountain through a pine and oak forest occasionally fragmanted by vineyards and the picturesque village of Yeniköy, starting from Kumbağ and leading to Uçmakdere, offers impressive views over the Sea of Marmara and Marmara Islands. It can be hiked without the need of a guide or a map as it is a very clearly obvious road, has water sources located in a reasonable distance away from each other at 1st, 5th, and 11th kms at the first 12-km section between Kumbağ and Yeniköy, and a couple others at the dryer and less verdant 8-km section between Yeniköy and Uçmakdere; however you can make do with these sources unless at the peak of summer heat, and can be done reasonably in a day though returning is problematic as Uçmakdere has very little public transportation and offers no accommodation apart from a campground. Note that the local military police jandarma in Kumbağ bars access to the road further than 3 km away from Kumbağ during some of the summer weekends, so better done during weekdays or start very early in the morning, before the road is shut. If having a car at your disposal, and one that is at least compatible with non-surfaced roads you won't need a 4x4, though, you can do the same route, too, as the road primarily is for vehicular traffic, however little traffic it may have.

Paragliding – Although not widely known, paragliding is also possible on the foothills of Mt Ganos. There is a take-off area near Yeniköy village about 10 km away from Kumbağ, about 30 km to Tekirdağ and a landing strip at the Ayvasıl beach, about halfway between the villages of Yeniköy and Uçmakdere. To go there, first, enter the Barbaros-Kumbağ road from Tekirdağ and after about 1 km you left Barbaros behind, follow Naip signs in the fork to right, there is also a “paragliding area” sign there but only in Turkish, when you left Naip behind follow the left sides twice in the forks and you’ll soon arrive at Yeniköy. Around there you’ll see signs for both take-off and landing areas. Bring your equipments and food and drink with you as you’re highly unlikely to find any once in Yeniköy.

Windsurfing – Tekirdağ’s sea is usually very wavy and windy during summer, so it is a perfect place to windsurf.

Yelken Kulüp on the west end of the shore promenade, tel +90 282 261 44 66 offers windsurf classes in the summer months.

Namık Kemal University, which has been founded in 2005 with its presidency in Tekirdağ has a faculty of agriculture near Değirmenaltı which accepts exchange doctorate students from around Europe but not offering much else at the moment.