Tourism Centres Of Turkey

    Turkey, whose land mass is 780.000 sq km., is a beautiful country among three continents. Three sides of it is surrounded by seas. İts population is near to 65.000.000. Iraq and Syria at the south, Iran at the east, Georgia and Armenia at the nort-east, Russia at the north, Bulgaria at the north-west and Greece at the west are the neighbours of Turkey.

   Our country has lots of tourism centers. İf you like doing things like sking or mountain climbing, you can go to Uludağ. You can ski at Moun Uludağ from December to March. İf you love visiting historic places,you should see Termessos, Perge, Aspendos, Side(in the region of Antalya) the canyon of Ihlara, the underground cities of Derinkuyu and Kaymaklı(in region of cappodocia)The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus and the remains of the seven wonders of the world at Bodrum are worth visiting. The Manastery of Sumela in Maçka, the hazel nut growes in Ordu, the cherry orchards in Giresun and the untouched naturals beauties of black sea coast are fabulous place. You can spend your holidays on the high plateaus of Trobzon. İf you are a tea addict, you can go to Rize and drink tea in the beautiful  tea gardens by the sea.I advise you to go to Kırşehir to learn the Ahi Brotherhood. İf you want to know Mevlana and his religious beliefs, you must pass by Konya. The festival of the Dancing Dervishes can be see in December. İf you like lying on the beaches all day, the Mediterranean coasts and the Aegean Coasts are most suitable places for each person. You can get a suntan on thesandy beaches in these areas.

Atatürk’s mousoleum Atatürk’s house

Ankara On a hill overlooking the Turkish capital of Ankara is the monument to the man without whom have been reduced to little more than a patch of steppeland. General Mustafa Kemal roused a people already exhausted by the Ottoman defeat in the First World War, drove the invading forces into the sea, and won back for the Turks their homeland. Taking the name Atatürk or “Father of the Turks”, Mustafa Kemal founded the modern democratic Republic of Turkey, based on Western laws. İt was Atatürk who made the strategically placed Ankara Turkey’s capital, and the city is a monument to his vision of a modern westernized state.    Even around Ankara, this path of civilization stretches back a long way; to the Hittites, a proud and warlike people who ruled an empire from the Black Sea to Phrygians, a Thracian people who dominated the Anatolian plateau in the 1.millenium B.C

The Hittite capital of Hattusas(now called Boğazkale) lies 200km.to the north-east of Ankara. The craggy hillof Hattusas was ringed by double walls and its gates were guarded by lion statues. Close to Hattusas is the Hittite open air sanctuary  of Yazılıkaya, and also nearby is the Hittite city of Alacahöyük.      To the south-west of Ankara,near Polatlı,is the site of the Phrygian capital of Gordion, where Alexander the Great cut the famous Gordion knot that gave him the key to Asia. Also at Gordion is the great eart tumulus of King Midas, famed in the legend the Golden Touch.    Mirroring the ancient civilizations of the land  is Ankara’s Museum of Anatolian Civilizations(Archaelogical Museum),with its unique collection of proto-Hittite sun discs and stg cult figures,Hittite reliefs and phrygian metalwork.

Şekil 1Dovecotes Şekil 2in the Valley of Göreme Cappadocia Violent eruptions of the volcanoes Erciyes Dağı and Hasan Dağı three million years ago, covered the surrounding plateau with tuff. From this brittle rock the wind and rain have eroded Capadocia’s spectacular, surrealist landscape of rock cones, capped pinncles and fretted ravines, in colours ranging  from warm reds and gold to cool greens and greys.    Cappadocia is one of those rare regions in the world where the works of man blend unobtrusively into the landscape. Dwelling are known to have been hewn from the rock as far back as 400B.C., when xenophon mentioned them in his Anabasis. During Byzantine times chapels and monasteries were hollowed out of the rock, and their ochre toned frescoes simply reflect the hues of the surrounding landscape. Even today, troglodyte dwellings in rock cones and village houses of volcanic tuff merge harmoniously into the landscape.

Rocky peaks of Zelve Churches of Göreme The most interesting sites of the region include the rock chapels of Göreme, the troglodyte village of Avcılar, the red-coned monastic complex of Zelve, the villages of Ortahisar and Uçhisar clustered around rock pinnacles, the canyon of Ihlara and the underground cities of Kaymaklı and Derinkuyu. In the centre of region are the town of Neşehir and the village of Ürgüp, around which are most of the region’s best hotels, many of them having swimming pools.    On the fringe of the volcanic plateau are the cities of Kırsehir, Kayseri and Nigde, all once centres of the Seljuk Turks, whose art adds a different dimension to the region. İt is intriguing that just as the region was the centre for the development of Christian monasticism in the 4th century, so too it proved a fertile area for the development of Islamic mysticism, science and art. Two humanitarian Moslem sects, the Ahi Brotherhood and the Bektasi Dervishes,originated in Kırsehir and Hacıbektas respectively, and several interesting buildings associated with these sects can still be seen.

KONYA    Fanning out from the foothills of the Taurus Mountains is the Plain of Konya, one of the cradles of civilization. Here on the grasslands, in Neolithic times, the wild bull and leopard roamed, the animals that became the cult figures of Çatal Höyük, the world’s first city. This recently excavated site of 6500 B.C., where the houses were entered from the roofs, lies 50km. south of Konya near Çumra.    İt was not until the 12th century that the Konya Plain experienced its second cultural Renaissance, when the city became the capital of the Seljuk Turks.

Migrating from the stepps of Central Asia, the Seljuks served the Byzantines with a crushing defeat in 1071 at Malazgirt, which opened the floodgates to the Turkish settlement of Anatolia. Under the enlighted rule of the Sultan Aleaddin Keykubat, Seljuk culture reached its zenith in 13th century Konya. Seljuk art strikes a pefect balance between purity of line and intricacy of decoration, as reflected by Konya’s many beautiful buildings, such as the Aleaddin Mosque, the Karatay Medresesi and the İnce Minare Medresesi.

interiorof Mevlana’s Mausoeum    İn this atmosphere where learning and art flourished, one of the great Moslem mystic movements was born. This sect, known to the West as the Whirling Dervishes of Konya, was founded by Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, a mystic poet, whose tolerance and humanity were quite exceptional for his age. There was not a trace of fanaticism in Mevlana, and he wished to encompass all men in his faith based on love.    As the symsol of the shedding of  earth ties, Mevlana devised the whirling dance, accompanied by the ethereal sound of the reed flute. This whirling dance can still be seen in December, during the Mevlana festival. Mevlana lies buried in a striking green tiled türbe or mausoleum, which is a site of Moslem pilgrimage. Attached to the mausoleum is now a museum of articles belonging to the order.