top of page

On To Ankara

After our visit to the palace, we got on our tour bus and headed out of the city. It was perfect timing, because I was starting to feel closed in by the 18 million or so people in Istanbul. After an hour or two we pulled into a rest stop for lunch. This is where we learned our first Taylanism. He referred to the cafeteria style food lines as "point and shoots". Luke and I still use this phrase with giggles. I had the best spicy lentil soup of my life. It was fun to interact with the food servers as we communicated with our poor Turkish, their poor English and lots of gestures. That night we settled into our hotel. A bunch of us followed Taylan to his favorite pub and had a meal together. Luke and I got to know Liz and Mario. The next morning we visited the fantastic Anatolian Civilizations Museum and then Ataturk's Mausoleum.

                          TRIP TIP
To get more out of your Rick Steves tour, prepare by learning some history ahead of time. Before the trip I spent time at the library and watched videos on YouTube. This, along with Taylan's teachings made this day more meaningful. Who were the ancient Anatolians?  Who is Attaturk and what does he signify to modern Turks?
​
​
bottom of page