#2
Arriving to Ankara by plane...

Ankara has only one civil airport which is located in Çubuk where is a district of Ankara, and 22 km. far away from city centre. Transportation depends on traffic jam and takes about 35-40 minutes from airpot to city centre. Ankara Esenboğa Airport is pretty a modern building. But you should't be deceived. Because Ankara is not a contemporary city like that. Public transportation is too poor. So i want to give information to deal with these problems.

When you come to Ankara Esenboga Airport, you have 4 choices. Two of them are public transportation, one is taxi and one is your own car. Taxi is too expensive for Turkey's average in Ankara, so i don't recommend it. And also i don't like Ankara's taxi drivers, because they are so rude and if they understand you are strange, they may drive long to get more money. But still to say how much money it charges from airpot to city centre, i guess about 100-150 Türkish Liras (nearly 50 Euros or 75 US Dollars).

 

Public transportation is only limited by bus. Because there is no train or underground system from airport to city centre. So you have to use Airport Shuttle Buses. When you get off the airport building from departure passengers door, you will see big white busses like above. The busses nearly look like the same, so you can be confused to seperate them.  One of them is HAVAS which operates by private sector and another is BELKO AIR which operates by Ankara Metropolitan Municipality. HAVAS's price is 10 Türkish Liras (nearly 3,5 Euros or 5 US Dollars) and BELKO AIR busses price is 5,25 Türkish Liras (nearly 1,8 Euros or 2,5 US Dollars). I suggest that you shoul choice the BELKO AIR busses,  because their direction is more extensive. Both of them go to the ASTI (Ankara Intercities Bus Station), but this is the last station for HAVAS, but BELKO AIR busses also go to the Kızılay direction where is the heart of Ankara. And i think BELKO AIR Busses present to passengers free WI-FI service, but i am not sure about this.

When you come to ASTI, there is last station of subway whose direction is DIKIMEVI. As you see from the map, you can go to Kızılay by subway with this line, too. Subway ticket is 2,3 Türkish Liras for adults and you can also use this ticket at busses and other underground train lines in 75 minutes again and again. But it is restricted to use for 3 times in a 75 minutes period. 

One more thing maybe i must remind you, Ankara is more Anatolian city than Istanbul so timing is not important and precise.  Busses move when they get full or driver's mind. When you ask the time of moving, probably the driver say you "we are moving 5 minutes later", but this 5 minutes never end up. So i think you neither ask nor feel angry.

I will be continued to update this article.

See you...

Burak.

   

#1
First Article

If you talk about Turkey, almost all people remember Istanbul primarily all over the world. That's unsubstituted thing, so my intention is not to try changing it. But i know that if you want to visit any country you generally want to visit its capital city. Because capital cities are more developed, touristic and safety cities rather than other cities in the country. Visitors can access, what they want to do in these cities, more easily. 

Turkey has a different structure about i have mentioned above. Let me talk about Turkey generally and than i want to finish it with Ankara. Firstly, Turkey is a 75 millions-population-country and occurs 81 city. Nearly 15 millions people live in Istanbul, Ankara is the second big city after Istanbul and its population nearly 5 millions. Izmir is the third big city in Turkey, about 4 millions live there. You can see that one third of the country populations live in these three cities among 81 cities.

Istanbul is both the biggest and the most developed city in Turkey. It is related with its history. Istanbul had been the capital city of Byzantine until 1453 and Ottoman Empires until 1923. On the other hand, till end of the 18th century, Ankara was a small town. It became civilian and military base of Turkey when Turkey's Independent War between 1919-1923 and since declaration of Republic of Turkey, it has been the capital city of Turkey and has started developing with new Republic.

So that there are a 1000 years old capital city of empires, Istanbul and other side a 90 years old capital city of new Republic, Ankara. There are huge differencies between two cities. Ankara has different structure and nature than Istanbul. It is not cosmoplite like Istanbul. Now, in modern age of Turkey, I explain that Ankara gets behind 50 years from Istanbul, especially, visitors requirements. I criticize local governments for presentation of Ankara,  too. 

I know Ankara doesn't make up differencies with Istanbul only in one day. But i can help visitors who want to see Ankara about transportation, touristic places, daily life, safety places and etc.

See you... 

Burak.