Polonezkoy: The Polish Village in Istanbul You Can Reach in an Hour

Polonezkoy is a small village in the Beykoz district, on the Asian side of Istanbul, and it is one of my favourite places to send anyone who needs a day away from traffic and noise. It was founded by Polish settlers in the 1840s, it sits inside the largest nature park in the city, and it is still close enough that you can have breakfast in a forest clearing and be back in town by mid-afternoon.

I send a lot of visitors here, and the reaction is always the same: surprise that a quiet European-feeling village, with wooden houses and church bells, exists half an hour from the Bosphorus bridges. So here is everything worth knowing before you go, from the genuinely strange backstory to where to eat and how to actually get there.

The History of Polonezkoy: Why Is There a Polish Village in Istanbul?

The short answer: political exile. In 1842, Prince Adam Czartoryski, a Polish statesman living in exile in Paris after the failed November Uprising against Russia, wanted a second émigré centre on Ottoman soil. He sent his representative, Michal Czajkowski, to Istanbul to make it happen.

Czajkowski bought a patch of forest land in the Beykoz hills from the Lazarist order (the same French missionary group tied to Saint Benoit High School), and Polish refugees began settling there. The first community was tiny, around a dozen people. They named the place Adampol in honour of Czartoryski, which the Ottomans turned into Adamkoy, and the modern Turkish name Polonezkoy simply means “Polish village”.

The settlers made their living from farming and forestry, and over the decades the population grew with new exiles arriving from across Europe. The village picked up some famous guests along the way: the composer Franz Liszt passed through in 1847, the writer Gustave Flaubert in 1850, and the future Pope John XXIII stayed here in 1941. After the Turkish Republic was founded, the Poles living here became Turkish citizens and gained the right to own the land they had been farming. Today the village has a few hundred residents, with roughly ninety still speaking fluent Polish, and it has shifted almost entirely from farming to weekend tourism.

If you like this kind of layered, unexpected history, it pairs well with a wander through other colourful neighbourhoods that locals love, the sort of places that don’t make most first-timer itineraries.

What Can You Do in Polonezkoy?

Plenty, and most of it is slow and outdoorsy by design. Here is how I’d actually spend a day.

Walk through the nature park. Polonezkoy Nature Park (Polonezkoy Tabiat Parki) is the real draw. It spreads across more than 3,000 hectares of forest, meadows, and quiet clearings, and it is one of the largest protected green areas inside Istanbul’s borders. Marked trails cut through dense woodland, and if you slow down you’ll often spot deer, foxes, and a lot of birdlife. It is the kind of place that resets your pace whether you mean it to or not. For more forest escapes in the same vein, see my round-up of the best parks and forests in Istanbul.

Rent a bike and ride. Polonezkoy is home to a dedicated cycling trail of around 7 km, one of the first purpose-built bike routes of its kind in Turkey. You can rent a bike in the village if you arrive without one, and the wider paths through the park are made for it. If two wheels are your thing, the broader outdoor activities scene around Istanbul is worth a look too.

Visit the Zofia Rizi Memorial House. This is one of the oldest houses in the village, built in 1883 and opened to the public as a memorial house in 1992. Inside you’ll find old photographs, documents, and everyday objects that tell the story of the Polish community far better than any plaque could.

See the Czestochowa Church. The Catholic church here, dedicated to Our Lady of Czestochowa, was built in 1914. It has a pretty garden, it still holds services, and it hosts the occasional cultural event. It is a small, genuinely peaceful building and a clear reminder that this village grew from a different tradition than the mosques you’ll see everywhere else in the city.

Stop at the Beekeeping Museum. In the village square there’s a small beekeeping museum where you can see how local honey production has worked over the years and buy the real thing on the spot: honey, pollen, propolis, royal jelly, and beeswax straight from the village’s own hives. It makes a far better souvenir than anything you’ll find in a tourist shop, and if you’re collecting things to take home, my list of souvenirs worth bringing back from Istanbul has more ideas.

Where to Eat: Breakfast Is the Whole Point

Honestly, for a lot of people the food is the reason to come, and the meal to come for is breakfast. Polonezkoy is breakfast country. The village is lined with garden restaurants and cafes serving the big traditional Turkish spread (eggs, cheeses, olives, jams, honey, and warm bread, with endless tea) at long tables under the trees. Come hungry and don’t plan anything for an hour afterwards.

A couple of local specialties are worth hunting down. The village is known for its honey, so order anything that uses it, and try to find a slice of Polonez cake, a sweet that traces back to the Polish settlers and is the closest thing the village has to a signature dessert. Many of the larger hotels and resorts run their own restaurants and pools, so on a hot summer day you can pair lunch with a swim.

If breakfast in Istanbul turns into a mission for you (and it should), I’ve written separately about the city’s best breakfast places and what actually goes into a proper Turkish breakfast.

When Should You Visit Polonezkoy?

My honest advice: go in spring or autumn. The air is cooler, the forest colours are at their best, and the crowds are thinner than in peak summer. Autumn in particular is special here, and it slots neatly into a wider tour of Istanbul’s forests when the leaves turn.

Summer weekends get busy because half of Istanbul has the same forest-breakfast idea, so if you can only go in summer, go early and ideally on a weekday. Winter is quiet and atmospheric but several venues run reduced hours, so check ahead before you make the trip.

How Do You Get to Polonezkoy and Where Can You Stay?

Polonezkoy sits roughly 30 km from the historic centre, on the Beykoz side, about 20 km past the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge. The easiest way to get there is by car or taxi, which takes anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour depending on traffic, and there’s parking at most restaurants and at the park.

By public transport it takes longer but it can be done. The 137 IETT bus serves the village, and you’ll typically reach it by first taking the metro or a ferry to the Asian side and then connecting onward. Give yourself plenty of time and check the live schedule, because services out to the forest are not frequent. If you’d rather not deal with the connections, hiring a car for the day is the simplest option, and my Istanbul car rental guide covers what to know.

On entry: the village centre itself is free to walk around, but if you drive into the nature park boundaries you’ll usually pay a small fee at the gate (at the time of writing, around 75 TL on foot or roughly 220 TL for a car, though the parks authority adjusts these and they can change seasonally).

For staying over, the village has a real range. There are traditional wooden chalet-style guesthouses with a lot of character, full-service resorts with pools and spas, and simpler, affordable rooms. A night here makes a relaxed pairing with a slower-paced visit, and if you’re planning a longer break it fits well into a list of day trip ideas around Istanbul. Polonezkoy proves the point that some of the best escapes in this city aren’t in the city at all.