Turkey is, in many respects, the ideal travel destination. It scores highly across the board: layer after layer of history; an amazing variety of landscapes; super-friendly people; terrific food; relatively low prices; reliable public transport… the list could go on. What a pity, then, that t…
With its unique mix of the exotic and the familiar, visiting Turkey can be a mesmerizing experience. More than the “bridge between East and West” of tourist-brochure cliché, the country combines influences from the Middle East and the Mediterranean, the Balkans and central Asia. Invaded and settled…
The ruins of Ani are a traveller’s dream – picture-perfect scenery, whacking great dollops of history, and almost nobody around to see it. While Turkey as a whole has been enjoying ever more popularity as a tourist destination, the number heading to its eastern reaches remains thrillingly low, lend…
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…red to unmarried parents. The annual birth rate is typically under two children per woman, though there’s a huge disparity between eastern and western Turkey. The law gives men considerable say over their children, though divorce law is fairly equitable. Sadly Turkey is also known for hundreds of an…
You’ve had a satisfying day or two’s heavy sightseeing in Istanbul’s historic Sultanahmet district. You’re culturally replete – but have a nagging feeling that you’ve missed something. The locals. Just what the hell do they do in this metropolis of fifteen million souls? To find out, head across th…
Stepping off the boat at Dalyan’s mud baths, you’ll be forgiven for wishing you hadn’t. But don’t be put off by the revolting rotten-egg stench of the sulphur pools – after a revitalizing day here, you’ll be gagging for more. The instructions are simple – roll in the mud, bake yourself in the sun t…
It’s a hot summer’s evening; overhead is a soft, purple-black and star-strewn sky. The incessant chirrup of cicadas mingles with the murmur of thousands of voices – Turkish, German, English, Russian – and the popping of corks, as the 15,000-strong audience settles down, passes round wine and olives…
…s to the sand will control access in various ways. Never pay a fee for a beach-lounger or umbrella unless the seller provides you with a ticket. Costs Turkey is no longer the cheap destination it was, with prices in the heavily touristed areas comparable to many places in Europe. Exercise a little r…
There are a wide choice of flights to Turkey from the UK (fewer from Ireland) taking between three and a half to five hours depending on your start and end point. Just two carriers fly direct to Turkey from North America, so most North Americans reach Turkey via a European gateway airport. Many tra…
Most of Turkey is well covered by public transport including long-distance buses, minibuses, domestic flights and ferries. The train network is sketchy, many routes slow and booking a headache – but it’s the cheapest and safest form of domestic travel. Late booking is the norm but book well in adva…
Whether you want to stand alongside some of the most passionate football fans in the world, hike a long-distance trail, climb up or ski down a mighty peak, raft the rapids of a mountain torrent, or paraglide over/dive beneath the warm waters of the Mediterranean, Turkey is the place to do it. Footb…
Western Turkey is both the more economically developed and far more visited part of the country. İstanbul, straddling the straits linking the Black and Marmara seas, is touted as Turkish mystique par excellence, and understandably so: it would take weeks to even scratch the surface of the old imper…
Few people return from Turkey without some kind of souvenir; whether it’s a cheap-and-cheerful pack of local herbs and spices or an expensive carpet depends on the budget of the traveller and the skill of the salesman. The best selection of good-quality wares is to be found in the major tourist cen…
It’s not possible to see everything Turkey has to offer in one trip – and we don’t suggest you try. What follows is a selective and subjective taste of the country’s highlights: outstanding buildings and historic sites, natural wonders and exciting activities. They’re all arranged in five colour-co…
Extending from just east of İstanbul to the frontier with Georgia, the Black Sea region is an anomaly, guaranteed to smash any stereotypes held about Turkey. The combined action of damp northerly and westerly winds, and an almost uninterrupted wall of mountains south of the shore, has created a rel…
…kes a welcome change from “shepherd’s” salad. Meze and vegetable dishes In any içkili restoran or meyhane, you’ll find the meze (appetizers) for which Turkey is justly famous. They are also the best dishes for vegetarians, since many are meat-free, while the variety of vegetables and pulses used wil…
Many Turks, even in remote areas, have lived and worked abroad (mainly in Germany) or at tourist resorts in Turkey, and are used to foreign ways. But traditional customs matter, and although you’re unlikely to cause offence through a social gaffe, it’s best to be aware of prevailing customs. Also,…
Turkey’s remote southeast, bordered by Iran to the east and Iraq to the south, is a land dominated by soaring peaks, rugged plateaux and plunging valleys. Its austere natural beauty makes the perfect backdrop for some of Turkey’s most impressive and intriguing sights, whilst the predominantly ethni…
No special inoculations are required for Turkey, although the cautious might want typhoid and tetanus jabs, particularly for eastern Anatolia. Some visitors also get injections against hepatitis A, for which the risk is possibly greater in İstanbul than in rural areas. Malaria is a seasonal (April–…
…fic mystic who founded the whirling dervish sect, the Mevlevî; his writings helped reshape Islamic thought and modified the popular Islamic culture of Turkey. In western Turkey, Konya has a reputation as one of the country’s most religious and conservative cities, while simultaneously holding the ti…
…ties and sights far less heralded than their counterparts in South Central Anatolia. However, those willing to do a little digging will find it one of Turkey’s most rewarding and undiscovered quarters. It seems appropriate that the heart of original Turkish settlement should be home to Ankara, the p…
Few travellers make it to Turkey’s northeast, but many of those who do find it the most stimulating part of the country – imagine rafting down a raging whitewater river, hiking along a bucolic valley, or peering at distant horizons from a snow-covered mountaintop. Yet this outdoor appeal is far fro…
The basin of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, a broad plain ringed on three sides by the mountains is the most exotic part of Turkey, offering travellers a heady mix of atmospheric ancient sites and bustling Middle East-style towns. The region forms the northern rim of ancient Mesopotamia (literall…
Turkey’s far northeast was once under the command of the Georgian kingdom, and despite centuries of Ottoman rule, evidence of this historical legacy remains tangible – ruined castles and churches abound, dotting a valley-chiselled landscape more redolent of modern Georgia than “regular” Turkey. The…
Celebrations in Turkey comprise religious festivals, observed throughout the Islamic world on dates determined by the Muslim Hijra calendar, and annual cultural or harvest extravaganzas held in various cities and resorts across the country. Religious festivals The most important religious festival…
Forty kilometres east of Tarsus sprawls ADANA, Turkey’s fifth largest city with over 1.5 million inhabitants – a modern place, which has grown rapidly since the 1990s. Today, as in the past, Adana owes much of its wealth to the surrounding fertile countryside of the Çukurova, with a textiles indust…
Turkey’s total area is a vast 814,578 sq km (97 percent in Asia, 3 percent in Europe). A 8333-kilometre coastline is lapped by four seas: the Mediterranean, the Aegean, the Marmara and the Black Sea. Numerous peaks exceed 3000m, the highest being 5165-metre Ararat (Ağrı Dağı). Largest of many lakes…
…nt sites. Thássos is more varied, with sandy beaches, mountain villages and minor archeological sites. Brief history Despite their proximity to modern Turkey, only Lésvos, Límnos and Híos bear significant signs of an Ottoman heritage, in the form of old mosques, hammams and fountains, plus some dome…
The Mediterranean coast of Turkey, where the Toros (Taurus) mountain range sweeps down to meet the sea, broadly divides into three parts. The stretch from Antalya to Alanya is the most accessible although intensive agriculture, particularly cotton growing, and package tourism have taken a toll on t…
Newspapers and magazines were forbidden in Turkey until the mid-nineteenth century; now there are over forty titles, representing the full gamut of public tastes. The airwaves were government-controlled until the late 1980s, but the advent of satellite dishes and overseas transmitters has seen a hu…
…ificant minority Arab, and you’ll find the bazaars full of veiled, henna-tattooed women and men wearing baggy trousers and traditional headdresses. In Turkey this “city of the prophets” has gained a reputation as a focus for Islamic fundamentalism – alcohol has almost disappeared from restaurants (t…
…the two castellated bluffs today sports golf-ball radar domes. The population is a mix of Kurds, Arabs, Turks and Syrian Orthodox Christians (known in Turkey as Süriyani). Like Diyarbakır, the city has had to cope with an influx of people from surrounding villages forced from their homes by the stat…
Hidden in a natural basin on the banks of the Kars Çayı, KARS is an oddly attractive town, unusual in Turkey thanks to a few incongruous terraces of Russian belle époque buildings. Although a couple of hundred metres lower than Erzurum, the climate is even more severe; the potholed streets never qu…
The northerly Georgian valleys form the heart of the province of Artvin, lying within a fifty-kilometre radius of the town of the same name. Nowhere else in Turkey, except for the Kaçkars, do you feel so close to the Caucasus: ornate wooden domestic and religious architecture, with lushly green slo…
Situated some 22km southeast of Midyat, a couple of kilometres east of the İdil/Cizre road, the monastery of Mar Gabriel (Deyrulumur) is the geographical and spiritual centre of the plateau. Founded in 397 AD, Mar Gabriel is the oldest and most vital surviving Syrian Orthodox monastery in Turkey. I…
A formidable barrier between the northeastern Anatolian plateau and the Black Sea, the Kaçkar Dağları are the high end of the Pontic coastal ranges – and Turkey’s most rewarding and popular trekking area. Occupying a rough rectangle some 70km by 20km, the Kaçkars extend from the Rize–İspir road to…
…of all ills”, the men in fact are prodigious drinkers. This tendency is aggravated by the environment. This is by far the dampest and mistiest part of Turkey, with the sun in hiding two days out of three and up to 500cm annually of rain in some spots. The result is cloudforest vegetation, with every…
Inland Croatian cuisine is invariably a waistline-enhancing affair, with generous helpings of pork, turkey, duck and freshwater fish forming the backbone of most menus. Signature dish of Zagorje and the northeast is roast turkey served with mlinci, sheets of pasta torn into misshapen scraps and cov…
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As much as any other city in Turkey, SİVAS has been a battleground for the successive empires struggling to rule central Anatolia. Now this well-planned city of 200,000 people wouldn’t figure on anybody’s itinerary were it not for a concentration of Selçuk buildings – among the finest in Turkey – c…
The region only became part of modern Turkey in 1939, having been apportioned to the French Protectorate of Syria following the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. Following the brief-lived independent Hatay Republic of 1938 it was handed over to Turkey after a plebiscite. This move, calculated to…
…les and cultures of Anatolia from the late Stone Age through to Classical times. When you see a replica artefact at an archeological site elsewhere in Turkey, you can bet the original is here. Housed in a restored fifteenth-century bedesten, this unmissable museum is, for most visitors, the high poi…
…there are a few Jordanian designers producing new, handmade items, practically all the new jewellery you’ll see in craft shops has been imported from Turkey, India or Italy. Chunky bedouin jewellery that looks old generally turns out to have been made seventy or eighty years ago, and much old “silv…
Van is at the very heart of the propaganda struggle between Turkey and Armenia over the terrible events of World War I. The city became a battleground in April 1915 when Armenian civilians, considered Russian collaborators by the Turkish authorities, barricaded themselves in a quarter of the old to…
Between April and September, storks are a common sight across Turkey, which forms a stopover between the birds’ winter quarters in Africa and their summer habitat in the Balkans and central Europe. The clattering of the birds’ beaks is an equally common sound. Storks mate for life, and the breeding…
Finding a bed for the night is generally not a problem in Turkey, except in high season at the busier coastal resorts and larger towns. Lists of hotels, motels and guesthouses (pansiyons) are published by local tourist offices, and we’ve listed the best options throughout the Guide. Prices, while g…
