"Turkey's Capital" Ankara by Firestar24

We were in Ankara for a total of seven hours - and two of those were spent at the bus station. The Ankara Expressi pulled into the train station on-time at 8:04am. I bounced off and Jonathan crawled after me, dragging along his wicked hangover - he only actually rolled off the upper berth at 7:59am! The first thing we did was buy some water at the little station shop and the second was to find the left luggage lockers. These computerised contraptions caused us much grief for about 15 minutes before we eventually managed to successfully lock our bags away. Very confusing – remember to bring small change and patience if your doing this.

Jonathan was literally crying out for coffee so, armed with our Lonely Planet city map, we headed toward the old citadel and the recommended And Evi for breakfast. Walking through the capital we passed the huge, run-down park in the centre and the statutes of Ataturk, mounted and in military splendour. We took a wrong turning and came across an angry mob of protesting pensioners and a rival group of armed police who out-numbered the elderly demonstrators by about 10-to-1 and stood in formation looking bored, joking quietly amongst themselves. We realised we had gone the wrong way when we reached a busy-looking flyover and managed to navigate backwards when we realised we had passed the Opera House. Back we went, past the angry aged, who were thankfully still practising peaceful protest.

Finally on the right track, we headed up a pleasantly tree-lined road out of the centre and came to the steps to the old citadel. Jonathan, by this point, was nearly crying for want of caffeine and we headed, optimistically, up the flight of twenty steps which disappeared behind a stone monument. Completing the first ‘flight’ we surprised to find ourselves in a wooded park-like area and confronted by another great slope of about fifty steps in front of us. Jonathan was less than happy. By the time we conquered that little mountain and spotted the next load of about twenty more steps… Well, I just thought it was hilarious but Jonathan wasn’t in the mood for seeing the funny side!

Eventually we reached the top of the steps and stopped to appreciate the stunning panorama of the city before heading off to find And Evi – a place that was quickly becoming our El Dorado. The citadel looked crumbling and deserted – especially when compared with the busy centre we had left only 10 minutes earlier. There was not a single person around and the only signs of life were the shoes left neatly in pairs by each closed door. It was starting to get spooky. We ambled through the narrow, dusty streets until we turned a corner and saw a glorious Ottoman style building, immaculately kept and displaying a sign – And Evi! Suddenly there were people around and a radio played music from inside and the feeling that we’d stumbled onto the set of House of Wax slowly started to diminish.

We headed in but the restaurant didn’t open until 10am… We checked our watches – 9:50am. I could sense Jonathan was fast becoming a man on the edge but I took him round the corner to have a bit of a look around. And that’s when three Turkish schoolboys decided to come over and get Jonathan to help with their English. They were the sweetest, politest young boys I’ve ever met and they were thrilled to be able to have real live guinea pigs for practising their language skills on. Jonathan was having trouble talking though and after 10 minutes we made our excuses and headed back to And Evi... Where Jonathan ordered an Efes beer!**

** On reading this section Jonathan has protested that I have shown his relating to the Turkish Schoolboys in a poor light. He actually enjoyed the distraction of talking to the boys and tried hard to help them with their English homework – even with a killer hangover. I apologise if I gave any other impression. Sorry Pooki!

After breakfast we headed down to the Ankara Museum of Anatolian Civilisation, managing to get only slightly lost on the way. The museum was really quite busy but well worth a look and we finally found out that the statute of what looked like an alien holding a baby, which we had seen in a gift shop by Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, was actually a replica of an early Anatolian miniature sculpture. We bought a replica in the museum’s gift shop at a quarter of the price of the tiny Topkapi version.

Worried about what would happen if we overran our time on the left luggage lockers, we headed back toward the train station. By the time we got back we were over by 15 minutes but the locker just charged us for the excess so it was fine. Our next stop was going to be Cappadocia and we planned to get there by bus. My Lonely Planet made it sound very easy to jump on a metro to get to the bus station but, despite carefully following the directions in the guidebook, we ended up in the middle of Ankara with not a metro in sight and flagged down a taxi instead!

In conclusion, we had a busy and enjoyable visit to Ankara and managed to get lost no more than four times in seven hours – hurrah!