THE VERY BEST OF ANKARA - TURKEY'S CAPITAL CITY
so we're at delaman airport and in this video we're taking you to the capital [Music] welcome to ankara [Music] so i'm in the kazilai area of ankara ankara is the capital city of turkey and it has been since 1923. it's a very cosmopolitan city and there's around five million people that live here which makes it the second biggest city in turkey second only of course to istanbul which has about 15 million its position in central anatolia makes it a key trading post and it has been for thousands of years [Music] it's well known as a center of commerce embassies banks and government buildings it's an important educational centre with huge universities and because anchor is around 950 metres above sea level that's about 3 000 feet it makes it a lot cooler here than it is in the south of turkey in the touristic areas which is one of the reasons we came here in august because the temperature here is only around 30 degrees whereas in the south it's more like 40 degrees there is a huge metro underground system as you can see and it carries 300 000 people a day with 56 stations but we found it quite confusing and although they have told us you can use your credit card to pay which is the same on the buses apparently and there are thousands of buses going all over the city we found it much easier just to jump in a taxi and tell them where you want to go and they're not expensive so this is the new railway station with a high-speed train that goes straight through to istanbul and we're going to escape share here today which is 146 miles away in one hour and 26 minutes and it's only 43 and a half lira that's about four pounds [Music] so we bought our tickets at the station but there is actually an app for your phone so you can buy your tickets online if you want and it's got usb charging ports between the seats and also it's got 220 mains plug socket as well this is the first time i've ever been on a train in turkey and you're going backwards i'm going backwards but it's got more legroom than you have on an airplane oh there's a there's also radio stations if you've got headphones very quiet didn't it yeah it's lovely oh did you feel it yeah tip sideways mini roller coaster ride let's have a look around the city there are dozens of statues around the city many are in the lovely parks [Music] so i've done quite a few wildlife films and filmed birds in turkey but i've never seen swans in turkey before although i don't think these are wild [Music] and it's a lovely place to just sit and relax [Music] you don't have to go far in ankara to find a nice quiet spot away from the traffic and this park is the apti ipecta park but probably the most popular park is the genslick park [Music] and if you want a bit of fun you can always come to the lunar park the fairground [Music] but my favorite park has to be this one called lush parker where you can actually hear the birds singing [Music] so what about hotels well if you look on the internet there are hundreds of hotels and different agencies give different prices anywhere between 20 and 50 pounds you can find a really good hotel between three star and five star and we weren't quite sure where to stay so we decided we'd stay in two different hotels so the first one was this the gordian which is in the chankaya region where quite a lot of life here with restaurants and bars and pubs and stuff like that and then we came to this one the divan chukohan which is a very special hotel and it's right opposite the castle entrance [Music] and as i was saying how special this hotel was this is basically a restored inn or ham as they used to call them from the 16th century so it's a museum in itself and some of the pieces which are around the hotel are museum pieces [Music] and it's only about 50 pounds a night which we thought for this sort of class hotel i mean it's graded as a boutique hotel i thought it was pretty special what do you think lovely bathrooms are lovely and spacious it's like having your own dressing room that's your half this is my half [Music] we need one at home so it's beautiful lighting in here but it really is like night at the museum isn't it [Music] joking aside this is one of the most interesting hotels we've ever stayed there are even books in the drawing room written by the owner rami koch who is among the top 1 000 richest people in the world he restored this building and the antiques on display here are only a tiny part of his huge collection from the hotel there's actually two museums you can get to without even going outside and this is the saffran han or saffron museum which is just fantastic me being an engineer originally i just think this is a wonderful it's got engines it's got old cars there's printing presses some of the things are just unbelievable not only are these amazing pieces of engineering but they've also been fantastically restored in a virtually brand new condition [Music] there's even a petrol pump and just when we thought we'd seen everything we went into another part of the museum where there were more classic cars one of the first cameras one of the first televisions one of the first electric vacuum cleaners and hundreds of other artifacts there was even some of ataturk's personal clothing [Music] beautiful old cine cameras to think what we're using now [Music] in 1960 when i was born that's what they were using as a calculator [Applause] it's got to be the best private collection i've ever seen just incredible mustafa kemal ataturk known as the father of the turks this highly respected man changed so much in turkey and saved turkey from being carved up by britain greece and europe after the first world war he was the founder of modern turkey and still held in high regards even now 83 years after his death statues of him are all over turkey and the children here still sing the istig lal marsha which is the national anthem every morning at school in respect of him when he died in 1938 the people built a modern mausoleum for him it has thousands of visitors every year and his legacy still lives on even today 83 years after his death the most famous place in ankara has to be kabir after turks mausoleum [Music] [Music] so [Music] i don't know how much stone is in this building but it must be at least a million tons [Music] [Music] [Music] look at these gates i mean these are solid bronze like it they must weigh a ton each but this is the mausoleum the main building and i thought ataturk was in that block but he's not he's actually in a room seven meters below which you can only see through a tv screen [Music] [Applause] but what a building look at that [Music] what a great honour this must be for these guys to guard ataturk's tomb [Music] down [Music] at the side of the mausoleum is a museum and it's well worth waiting in the queue for because inside are artifacts from ataturk's life but the most fantastic thing for me were the paintings they are incredible [Applause] [Music] [Music] and in a building above the cafe there are the beautifully restored lincoln cars that ataturk used [Music] so this is the famous ankara statue the victory monument or what the turks call the ankara zafar anata it's got ataturk sitting on his horse but unfortunately it's being restored at the moment as you can see and right opposite here is the war museum so on the 23rd of april 1920 ataturk signed the documents in this building probably the most important building in turkey to make turkey a republic [Music] this could be the most important room in turkey this is where ataturk signed documents to make turkey the turkish republic there's lots of shopping centres around ankara but this is probably the most well known it's atakule i wouldn't say this is the best shopping area it's got all the posh shops in it and the actual tower that we were keen to go up is closed for renovation work but there are some really good restaurants in here [Music] the pity about the towers closed yeah that's a shame because we've come all the way come all the way here to go on the tap but that shows you should get your facts before you start out oh yeah going up [Music] and although we didn't do any shopping here there are plenty of things to feast your eyes on [Music] they've even got a cinema in this place and you can have a luxury seat in the cinema or even get a ticket for a bed that's luxury for you isn't it [Music] i'm all ready for the cinema i do have one request so i could do with another pillow you want some popcorn as well that would be very nice thank you and we found a great restaurant for dinner there's plenty on the menu lots of lovely deliciousness luigi's luigi yeah i would think so yeah i've only got to the soups so far it's too much choice and if you want the fantastic city view you need to book a table in advance [Music] everyone said that ankara is the best place for trying a simmet so we're going to try one [Music] [Music] it's very cheesy very truly yeah it overwhelms the cement that big mouthful so how does that compare to a simmet that's sold in the street in 38 exactly the same it's no different yeah yeah you're right ankara's renowned for its limits but they're no yeah yeah they are they're all lovely so this is kuzzalai renowned for its shopping area so let's go shopping [Music] actually we found shopping great all over ankara and prices are generally cheaper than the touristic areas with a lot more choice [Music] this is the best way to shop buy a suitcase and fill it and there's many well-known international shops like the body shop and marks and spencers in fact i asked the store manager and he says there's five marks and spencers here in ankara have you bought another bag no i bought a chimpanzee so looks like trudy's been shopping again [Music] oh no how are we going to get that in the suitcase we'll have to buy another suitcase we've stayed in three different areas while we've been here in ankara and we found that probably the best nightlife and the best restaurants are in the chankaya region we had a pleasant surprise on our first few days while we were staying at the gordian hotel as we found a street not far away that could easily have been the center of london is a street which is only a couple of hundred meters from the hotel had a great atmosphere and enjoyed by all age groups we certainly didn't feel out of place so our first night in ankara and this place is buzzing the nightlife is just amazing and everybody's out eating in the restaurants we just coming to this very turkish restaurant and ordered this fantastic meal oh it's just lovely lamb chopped [Music] it was a great atmosphere and being enjoyed by all age groups [Music] i knew there was a lot of pubs in handcraft but this place is mental [Music] although originally we were going to stay in just two hotels in ankara when we came back from a short trip to esquire we decided to stay a few days longer and we stayed in a slightly different area of chancaya closer to kazalai this is a bookshop street olga and there is also a couple of pubs and good cafes in this street too [Music] and this is also the street where our hotel is the great western plus dandala blooming i've got to say there's some really nice pubs around here cheers and just a few hundred meters away from here are the lively bar streets it's like this one which is caramel soccer which is clove street in english which is a pedestrianized street but there's a lot of fast food restaurants down here [Music] but this is not just any fast food street and one place stood out the dos lam would fire or hatai sofrasa because of the fantastic food on display and the unusual chef [Music] pretty good really tasty very very tasty [Music] you must come and see this guy he's a performer i never saw a chef like him before throwing food about it we found lots of places to eat and drink around this area and most of the pubs served great food as well [Music] i think it's worth mentioning in general the prices here are around 25 cheaper than the coastal resorts [Music] and then amongst all the pubs and restaurants you'll find occasionally if you look hard enough a traditional little restaurant that plays turkish [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] well there are hundreds of museums and in two weeks you can't cover all of them but we're going to show you a couple of the most interesting ones it's rich history dates back to the bronze age and stone age and it's been an important hittite and roman city thousands of years ago and the most important artifacts from those fantastic sites are in this museum the museum of anatolian civilizations [Music] [Music] 1300 bc this was carved such a long time ago [Applause] so this is the paintings and sculpture museum or the whole place is the ethnography museum and i'll be honest i wasn't even going to bother coming here because we've been to so many museums but just look at the buildings fantastic i haven't even been in yet but i tell you what there's a fabulous view of the city from up here as well [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and in the paintings and sculpture museum you get the red carpet treatment [Music] [Music] that's quite an interesting museum it's not very big and most of the art in it is modern art but there are one or two things which are really interesting but it's not on a par with the tate gallery in london codger tepee jeremy well it's not one of the oldest mosques but it looks like one of the biggest [Music] [Music] is of course you can't come to ankara without visiting the castle inside the walls are quaint restored houses and cafes and a few people trying to make a living from the fragile tourism at the moment [Music] don't be aware it's a bit of a walk to the top [Music] but certainly the best view of the city is [Music] since he was seven years old and he learned it from his dad but he's really a student [Music] does she kill her around the outside of the castle are dozens of interesting shots and people making and selling assorted crafts [Music] so just opposite the koch museum entrance is a passageway and there's a little cafe bar in there and a few little shops but it's originally part of a howling and inn and traders or merchants traveling through angkor would have brought their goods to here stayed the night put their horses in a stable next door and um and over the years it's been used for several different things but this little coffee shop the owner says was probably a little room where they stayed at the back of this passageway there's this lovely area where they've got arts and crafts [Music] some of the little shops here had very unusual crafts she's repairing old bits of wooden things and makes them into other things for like the home you know yeah lovely particular these ladies are making mosaics out of very tiny pieces of porcelain quality this one for instance they make it out of pieces of glass they cut tiny pieces of glass out [Music] and this lady was making fine glass jewellery and fine glass pottery [Music] and also selling her friends knitted teddies as a sideline be aware that most of the shops and cafes around the castle area all close up in the evenings [Music] so that's it from ankara don't forget to like subscribe and hit the notification bell so you don't miss where we go next thanks for watching [Music] you
2021-09-07 10:27
