Turkey: Useful
information about country.
fiogf49gjkf0d Turkey
is a country with a multiple identity, poised uneasily between East and West. The only NATO member in the Middle East region, the country has recently been accepted as a candidate for membership of the EU. Yet although in many respects Western, Turkey retains its frustrating differences, and its contradictions: mosques coexist with churches, and remnants of the Roman Empire crumble alongside ancient Hittite and Neolithic sites. Politically, modern Turkey was a bold experiment, founded on the remaining Anatolian kernel of the Ottoman Empire and almost entirely the creation of a single man,
Mustafa Kemal AtatA?rk
. An explicitly secular republic, though one in which almost all of the inhabitants are at least nominally Muslim, it's a vast country and incorporates large disparities in levels of development. But it's an immensely rewarding place to travel, not least because of the people, whose reputation for friendliness and hospitality is richly deserved.
Western Turkey is the most visited and economically developed part of the country.
Istanbul
, straddling the Bosphorus straits and the Marmara coast, is a heady mix of the Oriental and state-of-the-art modern. It's the country's cultural and commercial centre and also visibly the old imperial capital, and would take months of exploration to truly do it justice. Flanking Istanbul on opposite sides of the
Sea of Marmara
are the two earlier Ottoman capitals,
Bursa
and
Edirne
, and the former Byzantine capital of
Iznik
, with, just beyond, the World War I battlefields of the
Dardanelles
.
Moving south, on the
Aegean Coast
small country towns like
Ayvalik
are swathed in olive groves, while the area is littered with ancient sites like
Assos, Bergama
and
Ephesus
, which have been a magnet for travellers since the eighteenth century. Beyond the functional but not unattractive city of
Izmir
, the Aegean coast is Turkey at its most developed, with large numbers of visitors drawn to resorts like
A?esme
,
Bodrum
and
Marmaris
, beyond which the Mediterranean coast begins. There are remnants of the Lycians at
Xanthos
, and more resorts in
Kas
and
Fethiye
, along the aptly named "Turquoise Coast".
On the Mediterranean coast,
Antalya
is one of Turkey's fastest-growing cities, a sprawling place that is the best starting-point on the stretch towards the Syrian border, featuring extensive sands and archeological sites - most notably at
Perge
and
Aspendos
- until castle-topped
Alanya
, where the tourist numbers begin to diminish. It's worth heading inland from here for the spectacular attractions of
Cappadocia
, with its famous rock churches, subterranean cities and landscape studded with "fairy chimneys", as well as the SelA§uk architecture and dervish associations of
Konya
. Further north,
Ankara
, Turkey's capital, is a planned city whose contrived Western feel gives some indication of the priorities of the modern Turkish Republic.
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Turkey TOP CITIES :
Istanbul
Antalya
Ankara
Bodrum
Nevsehir
Istanbul Sultanahmet
Izmir
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Alanya
Aydin
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Urgup
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Ankara Kizilay
Antalya Belek
Beldibi Antalya
Belek
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Beyazit Istanbul
Bodrum Mugla
Datca
Fethiye
Fethiye Mulga
Gaziantep
Goecek Fethiye Mugla
Ilica
Istambul
Istanbul Sirinevler
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Konya
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