site.btaTurkiye’s Motorways, Bridges to Remain Toll-free over Nine Bayram Days

Turkiye is in for a long nine-day holiday on occasion of Ramadan Bayram, the end of the Muslim holy month of fasting.

This year, Ramazan Bayram falls between April 9 and 12, the nine-day holiday resulting from the addition of the weekends before and after these dates. 

By a decree of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, public roads and bridges, including those across the Bosphorus and the one at Canakkale, across Turkiye will be toll-free over the nine festive days, Transport and Communications Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu told Turkish media in a statement.

The authorities are expecting intensive traffic of up to 35 million people on the road and have taken the relevant control measures, Uraloglu added.

Public transport in Istanbul, as well as in Ankara, Izmir and Bursa, will be free in the days of Ramazan.

Travel on the Marmaray electric railway, connecting Istanbul’s European and Asian parts across the Bosphorus, will also be free.

As Greece introduced limited access visas for Turkish citizens at border checkpoints on April 1, allowing them to visit ten Greek islands for one week, quite a number of Turks are expected to do precisely that. 

Recep Yavuz, the head of the Antalya City Council's Tourism Working Group, said that seven ferry courses a day have been planned from the Turkish coast to several Greek islands and back.

An influx of tourists is also expected at the sea resorts of Antalya, Ayvalik, Izmir and Alanya, as well as elsewhere across the country.

Some of the Bulgarian settlers of the 1980s are also expected to return for the holidays.