Saturday 23 August 2014

Ankara


Ankara is not a city to fall in love with at first sight. Our first sight was a long, hot, dusty, hilly trudge through streets full of litter, most of it a carpet of tout cards for escort and massage services. Apart from a couple of grandiose banks, the architecture was soviet-style brutal concrete blocks, softened only by their crumbling edges. It was the end of Ramazan holiday, so most shops and cafes had their shutters up and the people milling around looked hot and listless, especially the women in their scarves and long gabardine raincoats. Back at the hotel we checked out what there was to do in Ankara and hoped that we could tolerate it for three days while waiting for the Friday train to Kars.

Fortunately, it got better. Next day we purchased a metro card which greatly improved the transport options, then headed to downtown Ulus, the old historic centre. Here a Hittite/ Roman/ Byzantine/ Seljuk castle sits at the highest point, presiding over the densely built-up surrounding hills and offering the most appealing perspective on Turkey’s capital. The streaks of graffiti on its walls were almost compensated for by a man playing traditional music in the courtyard, which did contribute some atmosphere to the scene. The old town itself is a pleasure to wander through, with restored Ottoman buildings now housing small shops and traditional crafts along with some more upmarket stores.

Ankara Vista from the Castle
 
 
 This chappy was very good.
 
 
We went to the main museum as usual and this one – the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations – is a beauty, with artefacts cherry-picked from all over Turkey. The building itself is a lovely restored Ottoman market and the collection is organised as a walk-through time tunnel, beginning with the fossil record (Turkey’s own early hominid, Ankarapithecus) and progressing through the Paleolithic, Bronze, Assyrian, Greek, Roman, Phrygian, Ottoman and Republican ages. For an Australian tourist in these parts, there is a constant sense of just how lived-in every place is, often by entire civilizations that you’ve never even heard of. And with this comes a sense of just how fragile and temporary even the greatest cultures can be – loot a few temples, burn a few libraries, assassinate a few leaders and it’s all but over; just a pile of stones, an olive tree and a herd of goats to mark the spot where a great philosopher taught, an artist crafted something beautiful or an engineer planned a complex water system. The highlight of the museum is the collection of artefacts from the Gordion burial mounds, which include the presumed remains of King Midas, along with remarkably well-preserved metalwork and furniture.
 
King Midas

Another museum is worth a visit here – the private Industrial museum of Rahmi Koc, once again in a beautifully restored Ottoman building. This quirky museum has collections of trains, cars, motors, tools, toys, instruments, pharmaceuticals, old photographs, Ataturk memorabilia, cameras and film paraphernalia, diving gear and lots more, all well presented and with helpful labelling.
 
Ceramic piece in the industrial museum

On our last day we decided to take an evening stroll to Ataturk’s Mausoleum before an evening rendezvous with a group of Ankara’s Geocachers at a local bar. The Mausoleum is an impressive sight, visible for miles at the top of a wooded hill and lit up after dark. There is a museum of Ataturk’s possessions (including his dog) and a photographic record of his funeral. The collection of documents is testimony to the man’s enormous energy and vision in establishing the modern Turkish state – it’s no surprise that virtually every business, home and even vehicle in Turkey has a portrait of Ataturk or a copy of his famous signature in pride of place. We had expected the tomb itself to be a place of utmost respect – like Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum in Hanoi, where the pilgrims file silently past with bowed heads, many of them in tears – but here people were chatting and taking photos, even the Turkish tourists. Oh well. Apparently Ataturk himself never wanted a mausoleum anyway.

 
The Ataturk Mausoleum lit up behind our hotel, with a crescent moon above


Behind me is almost every Lonely Planet ever published.
We walked on through leafy suburbs to the Varuna Gezgin Café del Mundo, a splendid bar/ café with about four levels including a rooftop, an international collection of beers, and every corner decorated with fascinating stuff from the proprietor’s many years of world travel. Terry was in heaven, especially after a dry few days in Ankara city. We enjoyed meeting the local geocachers: once again it’s proven a great way to get off the beaten track and see a different aspect of a place.

 
Café De Mundo
 
Then early on Friday morning we headed for the station, discovering on the way that the tunnel under the highway and railway had been bricked up and it was a very long walk around – fortunately an enterprising taxi driver had discovered this too and was busy making a killing on five lira trips back and forth to the station. We were there in plenty of time, and settled comfortably into our sleeper car for the 26 hour journey east across Turkey to Kars on the Armenian border.

 The Dogu Express to the Armenian border

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