{"id":133,"date":"2011-05-28T05:53:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-27T17:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/?p=133"},"modified":"2011-05-28T05:53:19","modified_gmt":"2011-05-27T17:53:19","slug":"cappadocia-to-bursa-via-the-capital-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/2011\/05\/28\/cappadocia-to-bursa-via-the-capital-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Cappadocia to Bursa via the Capital City"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday 22th<\/sup> \u2013 Day 9: Cappadocia – Ankara<\/strong><\/p>\n

We were allowed a sleep in this morning as we were not leaving the hotel until 9.30.\u00a0 We stopped off to view Uchisar castle which is what we got hailed away from on Friday. Uchisar means highest area around and there was a castle carved into the top of it.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t go in, it was just a chance to get photos of it as it was the most dominant point around.\u00a0 We stopped at a couple of more photo opportunities and then were off to Ankara about a three hours plus drive away plus lunch.\u00a0 It is colder today and now raining.<\/p>\n

We got into Ankara about three and headed straight to the Museum.\u00a0 Although small it had a good collection of items from right through the ages.\u00a0 Ankara is the capital city.\u00a0 Because it was in land and most threats came from the sea..<\/p>\n

We were then off to the mausoleum of Ataturk.\u00a0 As I mentioned before this is the guy that fought at Gallipoli and for the Turks independence who was a super hero.\u00a0 Even although he didn\u2019t want any thing they built this super impressive mausoleum for him.\u00a0 It was on the highest hill and is guarded 24\/7 by the forces.\u00a0 Huge.<\/p>\n

We then booked into our hotel, The Barcelo in Ankara.\u00a0 Gocke pointes us all to the Supermarket across the road and warned us that at Bursa there would be no where to buy drink except at the hotel.\u00a0 It looked like more than half the bus dropped their bags in their rooms and went shopping.\u00a0 We went to Doug and Ngaire\u2019s room and were joined by Damien and Noelene for drinks before an enjoyable meal which included some slices of beef.\u00a0 Margaret and I watched a Movie from Gocke called \u201cMy Life in Ruins\u201d about a tour guide in Greece.\u00a0 It was a laugh relating it back to our tour.\u00a0 The local team must have won the football as at about 9.30 the car horns started going crazy and didn\u2019t stop until well after I went to sleep.<\/p>\n

I gave the hotel a nine (out of 12 now).<\/p>\n

Monday 23rd<\/sup> \u2013 Day 10: Ankara – Bursa<\/strong><\/p>\n

A five hour drive ahead of us today so we are back to 6.30 wake up calls and on the by by 8.\u00a0 We head out of Ankara, the second largest city and head for\u00a0 Gordion, the city of King Midas.\u00a0 Remember the midas touch where everything turns to gold.\u00a0 We had to detour off the main highway for this and there was nothing much to see except the tulumus which were little man made mounds with a body (and his worldly possession) buried under it in what looked like a log house.\u00a0 The weather has warmed up and it was a very pleasant interlude before getting back on the bus.\u00a0 The main roads here are very often a duel lane road for each direction I guess like our motorways but not.\u00a0 The traffic flows well until you hit the towns<\/p>\n

Next stop was Bursa and the Green Ottoman complex which was a Mosque beautifully decorated in tiles.\u00a0 It was in the process of being restored.\u00a0 The girls had to cover their shoulders so we saw a collection of scarves come out.\u00a0 It was like a group of older country woman.\u00a0 We all had to take our shoes off as well.\u00a0 Not the best idea as my feet stunk.\u00a0 We then went across to the tombs of some important Ottoman Sultan and his family.<\/p>\n

Next was the Grand Mosque where it was shoes off and scarves on again.\u00a0 This one was huge and again beautifully decorated.\u00a0 Lot of people in praying or reading the Koran.<\/p>\n

We were then given an hour and a half at the adjacent bazaar.\u00a0 Little alley ways to wander around in but again silk, jewellery and clothes, nothing exciting.<\/p>\n

\n

Our Hotel was the Kervansaray Termal Hotel. It was an older hotel but very nice.\u00a0 We were lucky again and ended up with a suite but that also meant we got to host the drinks with Sharon and Gocke joining us.\u00a0 I gave this a rating of 8.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday 22th \u2013 Day 9: Cappadocia – Ankara We were allowed a sleep in this morning as we were not leaving the hotel until 9.30.\u00a0 We stopped off to view Uchisar castle which is what we got hailed away from … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136,"href":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions\/136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hailes.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}