December 20, 2009
Today we decided we should check out some historical and tourist spots in Ankara. After all, Turkey is the crossroads of the world and empire after empire conquered it. We took the metro to Ulus, the older part of Ankara. There we saw Roman ruins, the Temple of Augustus and Rome, which now surround the Hacı Bayram Mosque. I was confused as to why this place bustling with Turks and no tourists, then I realized that the mosque is still in use. The mosque was built in the 15th century, and renovated in the 16th and 18th centuries. It looks like it is in great shape from the outside. We didn’t go inside to look because we didn’t want to intrude during prayer time. The mosque and the Roman ruins were interesting, but even more interesting was the lack of information at the ancient sites. Without the guide books, we would have had no idea that we were at such an historical site.
After the temple and mosque, we walked up the road toward the Ankara citadel. On our walk up, we noticed fencing around ruins, what we thought was an Ancient Roman bath. The ruins were littered with beer cans, trash and everything else. We took pictures, and again we were amazed by the absence of signage to notify people what these ruins were. We continued walking up the hill and there was a sign! The sign explained that the ruins were a theatre not a bath house. We read up on it, took more pictures and continued walking. When we had just passed the top of the auditorium, the fencing ended, haha. We easily could have walked down into the ancient theatre walked up and down the seating area, sat down drank a few beers, or anything else without being bothered. This just flabbergasted all of us.
We continued up the hill to a beautiful park at the base of the citadel. It had paths lined with benches and trees on both sides creating a picturesque setting. It was a nice break from the city. While walking around the ruins and then up the hundreds of step, we all had the urge to go to the bathroom. Not a good time or place. The toilets near the citadel were the worst. We walked in, the lights didn’t work and there really wasn’t any natural light because of lack of windows. And to boot, they were Turkish toilets. I know they are not specific to only Turkey, but that is what we call them because they also have normal toilets. Let me explain, a Turkish toilet has two raised platforms to place your feet and then pretty much a hole between the raised foot steps. No light, Turkish toilets, and no toilet paper. Awesome. Oh yeah, and the water didn’t work to wash our hands.
After that traumatizing experience, haha, we continued to walk up more stairs to the citadel. Once we walked past the citadel walls, it’s like we went back a century or two, but still with satellites. It was a little town within the walls. It was quaint, but smelled like burning plastic. We walked to the edge of the walls and climbed them to take a panoramic view of Ankara. It is huge and so spread out; very modern to third world. One view was dilapidated houses on the side of a hill, it was terrible, but the houses with no windows or doors had satellites for their TVs. Looking over the city there was a Ferris wheel lit up surrounded by other amusement park rides, a huge mall, and the blue mosque. It was such a clash of old and new, rich and poor.
We then tried to climb to the “top” of the citadel. From anywhere else below, you see a Turkish flag flying high in the citadel. We were trying to find that. We walked through alleys and streets hopefully headed in the right direction. We found the flag, but it was surrounded by a locked fortification. We continued to walk around to see if we could enter at any point. We found an entrance and started walking in. Then an angry dog started toward us viciously barking. Brittany and I started running. I don’t really like dogs to begin with, so my heart was racing. So we ended up not getting close to the flag, but still took some great pictures.
Will the rest of our touristy adventures be to inconspicuous, have disgusting toilets, and involve ferocious dogs?
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