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Attractions of Turkey

Ankara

Turkey's capital is a sprawling urban mass in the midst of the Central Anatolian steppe. It's very different from the Ottoman town of Angora which preceded it on this site, a quiet place known for its fluffy jumpers of knitted goat fleece. Several significant attractions make it worth a short visit

Most visitors head straight for Hisar, the Byzantine citadel atop the hill east of the old city, and the nearby Museum of Anatolian Civilsations. Just south is Atatürk's mausoleum, a monumental building, spare but beautiful, that echoes the architecture of several great Anatolian empires.

Antalya

Antalya is the chief city on Turkey's central Mediterranean coast. As well as several km of pebble beaches and a historic Roman-Ottoman core, Antalya is a good base from which to explore the quieter beach towns and more spectacular ancient cities of the region.

Side, 75km (47mi) east of Antalya, is the increasingly popular beach town once chosen by Mark Antony and Cleopatra for a romantic tryst. Alanya, 115km (71mi) east of Antalya, is another sea-sun-n-sand joint with a mini-Miami feel. Patara is a party town a few hundred km south-west of Antalya.

Bodrum

South Aegean's prettiest resort, Bodrum has a yacht harbour and a port for ferries to the Greek island of Kos. Palm-lined streets ring the bays, and white sugar-cube houses and ranks of villas crowd the hillside. Boating, swimming, snorkelling and scuba diving are prime Bodrum activities.

At night Bodrum's famous discos throb, boom and blare, keeping much of the town awake until dawn. Both Turkish and foreign visitors complain about the ear-splitting cacophany, but the local attitude seems to be, 'If you wanted peace and quiet, why did you come to Bodrum?'.

Ephesus

Of Turkey's hundreds of ancient cities and classical ruins, Ephesus is the grandest and best preserved. Indeed, it's the spunkiest classical city on the Mediterranean. Ephesus was Ionia, a flourishing cultural centre during the Greek Empire, and a busy provincial capital during Roman times.

Ionia's Temple of Diana was counted among the Seven Wonders of the World, and the city was generally renowned for its wealth and beauty.

Sts Paul and John took up the quill in Ionia and the Virgin Mary is said to have spent her twilight years here. A walking tour of the ruins will take at least half a day, and if you're here in summer, start early, because it gets stinking hot by high noon. Places you'll come across include the Grotto of the Seven Sleepers, in which seven persecuted youths slumbered for two centuries, then woke up and ambled down to town for a meal; the colossal Harbour Gymnasium; the grand marble-paved Arcadian Way; the impressive Temple of Hadrian and a scattering of Roman fountains, pools, brothels, libraries and public toilets.

Istanbul

Straddling the Bosphorus, its skyline studded with domes and minarets, Ýstanbul is one of the truly great romantic cities. Its history tracks back from Byzantium to Constantinople to its place at the head of the Ottoman Empire. Today it hums as Turkey's cultural heart and good-time capital.

The heart of historical Ýstanbul is Sultanahmet, the district centred on the Byzantine Hippodrome in the oldest part of the city. The city is best explored on foot, as most sights are within easy walking distance of one another. If the pace does get too much, a çay bahçe (tea garden) is never too far away.

Devrent Valley

Many Cappadocian valleys boast collections of strange volcanic cones, but the ones near Aktepe in northern Cappadocia, known as the Valley of the Fairy Chimneys, are the best-formed and most thickly clustered. While geologists might congregate to appreciate the effects of differential erosion, everyone else just likes their other-worldly appeal.

Most of the rosy rock cones are topped by flattish, darker stones of harder rock that sheltered the cones from the rain that eroded all the surrounding rock. This process is known to geologists as differential erosion but you can just call it kooky.

Gallipoli Peninsula

The site of many a ferocious battle, it is surely the WWI melee of Atatürk's troops and the Allies that stands out. Today the Gallipoli battlefields are peaceful places covered in scrubby brush, pine forests and farmers' fields, but this strategic peninsula has always held the key to Istanbul.

Gallipoli is a fairly large area to tour, especially without your own transport (it's over 35 km (22mi) from the northernmost battlefield to the southern tip of the peninsula). The two best bases for a visit are Çanakkale on the eastern shore, and Eceabat on the western, both are covered by tours.

Harran

Harran, in Kurdish southeastern Anatolia, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited spots on earth. The hills around the town are surrounded by crumbling walls and topped with ruined buildings. It all looks so ancient that it's not hard to believe Abraham was one of Harran's early inhabitants.

Some residents still live in beehive-shaped mud houses and get by on a mix of farming, smuggling and the sniff of wealth as water starts to filter through from the vast Southeast Anatolia Dam. There's a fortress on the eastern side of the town, and some good mosaics in the 8th century Ulu Cami.

Troy

Compared to Ephesus, Troy is quite dull. Some say that it loses something without Brad Pitt running around, others see this as an improvement on the representation. Either way Troy is no stunner - the drawcard is its sheer history. Excavations have revealed nine ancient cities on the site, with Troy VI or VII believed to be the setting for The Iliad.

When amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann excavated Troy in 1871, the pants of classical studies boffins around the world became decidedly damp. Up to this time, Homer's Iliad was assumed to be based on legend, but post-digs, Troy became the Homeric city of Ilium, site of an epic battle between the Achaeans (Greeks) and the Trojans in the 13th century BC. Excavations by Schliemann and others have revealed nine ancient cities, one on top of another, dating back to 3000 BC. Troy VI (1800-1275 BC) is the city of Priam and the one that engaged in the Trojan War.

For afficionados this is all amazing, but unless you've read The Iliad, or have a keen appreciation of archaeology, you may find little of interest in Troy. Apart from a hokey replica of the Trojan horse, there's little to catch the amateur eye. That said, this is the site of one of the world's grandest tales, so soaking up the atmosphere should be just about enough.

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