We had an unplanned day in Istanbul and decided on a last minute trip to this place. Since this place and Sapanca is on every tour operators' itinerary, we hazard that we can go wrong. So we took an express train to Izmit, bus (262) to the village centre and cab up. Air is mountain fresh, interspaced by scent of burning woods. We were hoping for a short hike into the woods and it became apparent pretty quickly that we did a rather clumsy attempt in our research. There was nothing else for us to do after having walked around for 10mins so we ducked into one of the restaurants for a meal. Overall, in our humble opinion, the whole place is pretty underwhelming and the 'waterfalls' .. ermm .. an oversold concept and failed to be matched in reality. Perhaps Sapanca will make up for the gaps but we decided not to venture more as we could catch a glimpse of the lake from bus 262 enroute back to Izmit train station. I'm sure the lake will be overwhelmingly beautiful. The itineraries we saw priced Euro40/pax for both Masukiye and Sapanca. We spent 152 lira/pax, excluding Sapanca and not factoring in the potential efficiancy that comes with a tour - but we relish the freedom that comes with diy trips 😉.