The Penn Stater Magazine

Ankara, and Then Home

May 23, 2011 at 8:37 am Tina Hay Leave a comment

A guard at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founding president of Turkey.

Our last day in Turkey was spent driving from the Cappadocia region up to Ankara, doing a little sightseeing in Ankara, and then crashing at the Ankara Hilton in anticipation of a 4:30 a.m. wake-up call for the trip to the airport to head home.

I don’t get the impression that Ankara is the city you’d build your vacation around; it seems like a nice enough city, but it didn’t seem to have the charisma and history of Istanbul—or the ocean view of, say, Antalya. I think it probably was on the itinerary because it’s the nearest major-city-with-an-airport to Cappadocia.

Still, it has an impressive Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, as well as the Atatürk Mausoleum. The latter wasn’t on the official itinerary, but Gökhan made sure that we made a stop there—it’s a major landmark in Turkey and well worth a visit.

Changing of the guard at the Atatürk Mausoleum in Ankara.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was Turkey’s first president, a military guy who was an officer in World War I and then played a big role in Turkey’s War of Independence, from 1919–23. When Turkey became a republic, he became its president, serving until his death in 1938. He is absolutely revered in Turkey to this day. You see his image everywhere—many towns have a statue of him in the main square, and his photo shows up on the walls of stores, restaurants, even gas stations. We flew into Atatürk International Airport in Istanbul and walked past Atatürk Stadi (Turkish for “Stadium”) in Antalya.

Atatürk’s mausoleum in Ankara is actually a complex of buildings set on a big hill, with young military men standing guard at various locations à la Buckingham Palace or the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Tourists often stand next to a guard to get their picture taken with him. At one point it was raining, and suddenly I noticed that each of the guards had ducked into a little phone-booth-like shelter to continue his vigil.

Also on the mausoleum grounds is a gift shop, where you can buy all kinds of Atatürk souvenirs: books, coloring books, framed paintings, even wrist watches and neckties with Atatürk’s signature and/or portrait on them. The watches were only 25 Turkish lira—about 16 U.S. dollars—and I was half-tempted to buy one. It certainly would have made a great conversation piece back home.

Tina Hay, editor

Entry filed under: Alumni Association. Tags: Ankara, Atatürk, Atatürk Mausoleum, Legendary Turkey, Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.