Since the founding of the republic in 1923 as the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, Turkey has been secular and Kemalist in orientation. The country's founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, initiated a modernization of Turkey through social and legal reforms modelled on various European nation states.
The current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been at the helm of the country since 2003. Since around 2012, he has led the country in an increasingly authoritarian manner. Freedom of expression and freedom of the press in particular are considered to be severely restricted. The currency and debt crisis triggered by its economic policies as well as high inflation have continued since 2018, which makes Turkey quite attractive from a tourist perspective.
The culture of today's Turkey is a fusion of the ancient Turkish nomadic culture of Central Asia and Siberia, the Greco-Roman era, the culture in the Ottoman Empire with its Byzantine, Persian, Arabic, Caucasian, Armenian and Kurdish influences, as well as the strong European direction since the founding of the Republic Ataturk. The cultural centre of the country is the metropolis of Istanbul.
With the political changes, the content of Turkish literature also changed. Early representatives include Fakir Baykurt, Sabahattin Ali, Sait Faik Abasıyanık and Yaşar Kemal, who put ordinary people at the centre of their work. With the turn to describing living conditions, social and political criticism of the state is inevitable. The state reacts with censorship and political violence. Authors like Nâzım Hikmet, Yaşar Kemal and Aziz Nesin spend many years in Turkish prisons because of the persecution of their publications. Kemal therefore referred to the prison as a “school of Turkish literature”.
Turkish cuisine has also influenced Greek and the rest of the Balkan cuisine - including etymology. For example, tzaziki comes from the Turkish cacık, and Ćevapčići comes from kabapcik. Yogurt also comes from Turkish Yoğurt. Doner kebab is made from beef, veal or poultry. In Turkey, but also in other countries, the kebab is also served on a plate.
Coming from Güzelyurt (Province of Aksaray) we stop at the parking lot of the Ihlara Valley (Ihlara Vadisi), which is known for its numerous rock-cut churches, which is cleverly framed by several restaurants at the entrance area.
During our tour through southwestern Cappadocia, we came to Güzelyurt, a small town of approx. 3,100 inhabitants, which is about 32 kilometers east of the provincial capital Aksaray.
When you talk about the great rivers of Turkey, you immediately think of the two great rivers, the Euphrates and Tigris. However, both rivers leave Turkish territory again after relatively short stretches.
Having been involved in the activities and surroundings of Karaman city lately and as we tried to learn the history of the city, we discovered that there is an ethno/religious side to her name "Karaman".
UNESCO-World Cultural and Natural Heritage Cappadocia is located at the centre of a region which used to have intense volcanic activity and it added a lot of value to the lay of the region. While Anatolia basically consists of big lakes and tropical swamps, it can be seen that animals, plants and carnivores dating to very old times were dominant in the region.
After we returned to our vehicle from the venture we made into the stream, we came to “Keşlik Monastery”, which is also known as “Archenclos”, residential area of stone houses near Cemilköy.
These rocks were partially carved out and only thin walls were left.
Eskisehir (in ancient times it's name was Dorylaion) has got about 706.000 inhabitants and because of that is one of the biggest cities of Anatolia and as well capital city of the region of the same name. Today there is a well known university called Anadolu University and a huge air craft base of NATO.
Kırşehir is one of our most important cities in the Anatolian region. Kırşehir is located 156 km south-east of Ankara. The city’s beginning point leads to Hethitern. During the excavations 5000 year old settlementregions Hashöyük (3500-2000 v. Chr.) and Kalehöyük (1700-600 v. Chr.) were found in our today’s province Kırşehir.
Nevşehir, the gate to Cappadocia, is a traffic key point and since a short time a market and administration centre, that was founded in 1954. The name derives from the Persian Nau (translated intoTurkish as Nev) for New and Schahr (translated into Turkish as Şehir) for City and means New City.
The eastern part of the Taurus Mountains consists of massive rocks stretching from the West and increasing in height to the East.
Our second night was also very comfortable and it was breezy enough to let us sleep. Then at the early hours of the day, we departed for the next valley.
If you keep going through the alleyway after passing the Karakuş facilities through the Mustafapaşa Road at the west of Ürgüp, after a while you can reach Üzengi Stream which runs in parallel to the valley and where the water level isn’t so high. The valley also has an entrance from the direction of Ortahisar.
We saw very interesting wine house in the centre of Ürgüp whose garden wall was entwisted with many wine bottles. Entry of the house was also attractive.
On a Tuesday morning in the hot September season of Alanya, we took off to witness a few days of the internationally participated (Pal Takats, world champion in acrobatics, Mads Sydergaard, editor of Cross Country magazine, Olivier Laugero, world renown xcmag.com photographer, Fredegar Tommek, Fabrice Sibille) great sports event of paragliding shows in its first leg at Karaman.
As would be expected from a smooth running operation, the organizer of XC paragliding competition and our team took to the roads once more to observe preparations towards this year’s The World Air Sports Federation FAI approved XC World Series Paragliding events to take place at Karaman, and to visit the town of Mut, surrounds of which is mostly unknown to us as yet.
It was not a coincidence when I could beat Turkish Record with about 262 Kilometers in June 2010. Indeed, I fly since 20 years and my years of experience was a big part of this success.
First of all, we stopped by Avanos, which is Cappadocia’s handicrafts and pottery center, for lunch. This is an underground rock restaurant. Although when I looked from the outside I did not like it, dining hall of the restaurant was authentic and attractive. The residences that carved by damp-proof white rock are common in this region.
We are on the road from Karaman to Eregli on country road 350 as we turn to the right to direction Taşkale, a lovely nice little village in picturesque valley which belongs to Karaman about 40 kilometres away from the city.
We left Karaman in direction to Kilbasan on an asphalted country road leading to Karapinar. At Dinek we turned to the left, just after passing the massive 2.288 metres high former volcano Karadag, again on a metalled but smaller road, in direction to Madensehir just 30 kilometres to the north of Karaman.
Beyşehir is a large town and district of Konya Province in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey. The town is located on the south eastern shore of Lake Beyşehir and is marked to the west and the southwestby the steep lines and forests of the Taurus Mountains, while a fertile plain, an extension of the lake area, extends in the south eastern direction.