24 Hours in Ankara

This past weekend was our free weekend, nine people went to Ankara, Turkey’s capital city, and six people went camping on a mountain. I was one of the nine to go to Ankara. Fortunately, we had our friend Baris as our tour guide and translator. Ankara is Turkey's second largest city with over 4.5 million people and is very modern. This is how we spent our 24 hours in Ankara.

Leaving on Saturday at 8am, we arrived in Ankara at 9:30 via high speed train (250 km/hr, 155mph) and bus. We ate at a little café and then headed to see Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s tomb. Born Mustafa Kemal, he was given the surname ‘Ataturk’ meaning ‘Father of the Turks’ after becoming Turkey’s first president and leading much reform. Today he is simply known as Ataturk. He is beloved by the people of Turkey and there are pictures/monuments/symbols of him everywhere (in cafeterias, offices, street corners, etc). I guess it is also common for people to have his signature, K. Ataturk, tattooed on their forearm (maybe I’ll get G. Washington or something, I think it’d catch on). I make the comparison to George Washington, but there is really no single person throughout America's history that I can compare to Ataturk. Simply put, he is Turkey. The complex that he is buried in is huge and on the top of a hill, making it visible from all over Ankara.

Flowers in the Ataturk complex

Where he is buried

His tomb

The courtyard

After visiting with Ataturk, we walked down Aşgabat Street (or at least I think that’s the name). This street is full of cafes, shops, and pretty much everything. It is similar to İstiklal Street in Istanbul. We ate some ice cream and then were off to see Atakule Tower. The tower is 125m or 410ft tall and over looks all of Ankara. We were able to bring our lunched to the top of the tower to eat, which was pretty cool. Also, one side of the tower overlooks a military base and the president’s house so you’re not allowed to take pictures from that side, but I think we all managed too anyway.

Ankara has an IMAX theater in one of the malls, so of course we had to see The Dark Night Rises. Like all movies in Turkey, there was an intermission, and it couldn’t have come at a better time during one of the fight scenes. There were also three “power outages” during the movie from the generators failing, where the screen went blank and then the scene had to be replayed. In the end, it took over 3 hours to watch, but it was still worth it.

Before the movie...

After the movie

Later, we met up with some of Baris’ friends who live in Ankara and hung out at their apartment. They were really nice and spoke English well. We hung out until early in the morning, went to a bar until 5am, the bus station at 6am, and finally the train station at 7am. At this point we were all very exhausted and glad to be getting on the train to Eskisehir. The trip was a lot of fun and I’m glad we were able to make it! Our next trip is to Ephesus this weekend, which again, should be another great time.