Ari Tatil - First stop - Ankara IV

 

 

The reason for coming to Ankara was to go to the Anitkabir, the tomb of Ataturk.
It is impressive - the scale is MASSIVE. We arrived the day after the national holiday, and were shoved in with a group of military visitors, maybe we didn't look like tourists or it was my red jacket!
We gained speedy access to the morseleum then went to the museum - both really worth the visit.
What impressed me however were the guards. In Turkey we have compulsory military service, each guard was a substantial specimen - really they had sifted the tall and handsome for this duty, they stand on a pedestal - about 6 inches tall - but all were very much taller than the average Turk.

Ne mutlu Türküm diyene (English: How happy is the one who says I am Turkish)

Ari Tatil - First stop - Ankara III

In the castle area is a Koc museum - like it's Istanbul sister is it beautifully laid out and has a quirky mixture ranging from old brick telephones to steam engines. Not too big, with a restaurant in the court yard and I guess the roof opens, beautiful light fittings - reminding me more of a mosque.
However the best thing was the medicine cabinet from the pharmacy display in the basement -
Translated - the green side - Light poisons - red side, Killer poisons..... surely all poisons are Poisonous?? I love this concept.....

Ari Tatil - First stop - Ankara II

We were instructed to go to the Castle - we took a longer route, walking through the slightly crumbly area up to the castle it's self (just restored walls with NO safety precautions) a stop for Gozleme then to the next part..... I love the way an extra few inches were squeezed from the air for the second floor of these buildings.

Wordless Wednesday

Ari Tatil - First stop - Ankara

The day before we left Istanbul for our voyage of discovery was Children and Sovereignty day, celebrating the establishment of the Turkish Parliament, the day was then given to the children as a holiday.... this is the first parliament,.... the front was rather like a judges podium but impossible to photograph. The desks were like school desks, and I am sure things happened quickly as it looked really quite uncomfortable!
The other picture is of Ottoman Turkish, and modern Turkish - the first books after the 'letter revolution' when over night the language was re-defined, not only adopting a roman script, but vowel harmony and rigid rules about agreements within sentences, a new way of speaking which was designed in part to level out the dialect between the regions and create a single new Turkish language, quite an achievement in a short space of time.

Wordless Wednesday

Ari Tatil - where we went....

So this became the plan,
Ankara - to see Ataturk's tomb, with additional guiding provided by Istanbul friend via whataspp....
Konya - needed to be there for Saturday night - it is the only day you can see the Dervishes spin
Goreme - Cappadocia - seemed the most relaxed town in the area, lots of stuff close by.
Afyonkarahisar - We wanted Yalova but 1, I couldn't face a 10 hour drive, 2. We wanted a thermal hotel so the kids could swim and I could sit in HOT water. Not exactly the nicest place to stay but it was a good location.

Istanbul - Ankara , 5 hours, Ankara - Konya 3 hours, Konya - Goreme - 2.5 hours, Goreme to Afyon - 6 hours, Afyon - home - 6 hours...... a lot of driving.... some squabbling in the back.... some empty threats.....

Ari Tatil - roadtrip

Last week was Ari-tatil - kind of half term, spring break or if you are Turkish - bee holiday! I decided we were going on a road trip. Turkey is a massive country, it's highway structure, lakes and mountains make road travel slow, most people do long distance by air or bus, the train system is under developed. Air ironically is often cheaper than the bus.
However, I like driving and the country is spectacularly beautiful.... so road trip it was. I wanted to go to Konya desperately - I have been promised a guide, but like many Turkish promises it was full of hot air (real hot air later in the trip)
So my choice was Konya, the kids selected Gaziantep, Trabzon, Ankara, Cappadocia and Izmir, they also requested a swimming pool - or access to the sea at some point.
Check the map - these places don't make sense in the time (8 nights) unless I drove all night.

oops...

You know there is a great thing on blogger.... scheduled post.... this means you can write a post, and it goes live when you want it to.... We have just had a week of holiday, I set all my scheduled posts..... and .... nothing.... I was too 'busy' to check, I just thought it would happen... ufff....

2091 km road trip to come