Turkey Travel Guide

Turkey is, for Europeans, the great tourist discovery of these fifteen last years. With a dozen million tourists per annum (including 500.000 French and 3.000 d' Germans), it became traditional middle-distance carrier as well as Morocco or Greece. Being given dimensions of the country, the importance of its population and an obvious tourist potential, Turkey should become the great tourist destination of Europeans in XXIe century. It positions like the third destination sold by the French tour operators after Tunisia and Morocco. The crisis of 2003 should see all these figures with the fall. Among its assets: cultural richnesses accumulated by all civilizations which followed one another on this ground, as well as the great hospitality of its inhabitants.
The tourist regions
Istanbul, become one of the big cities which it is necessary to have seen. With the advantage to be a big metropolis (12 millions of hab.) what saves(spares) him(her) to become one day a city-museum as Venice with which we sometimes compare her(it). Among his(her,its) assets(trump cards):

- The sea. Istanbul is situated between two seas, she(it) is even shared in two by the sea, an aeration which limits(eases) the impression(printing) of breathlessness that one very big city can give.

- The architectural wealth of a city which was conquered several times without being destroyed(annulled). The last real devastation goes back up(raises) in 1204 and was the fact of the Westerners (the distrust to the western barbarians is not totally erased at the Greek's, master(teacher) of the city in the time(period)).

- The human wealth of a city which keeps(guards) rests of his(her,its) cosmopolitanism of former days. The Turkish great majority of the population are next(go alongside) in Istanbul the what remains Jewish communities, and Christian of the former(ancient) Ottoman empire (Armenian in particular). Of new monastic communities (alévis) or cultural ( the Kurds) came to be added during the XXth century. Istanbul is most Kurdish big city of the world today, but it is necessary to make far in suburb to go to meet him/her.

The islands of the offshore Princes of Marmara

The Aegean and Mediterranean coast(rib) between Izmir and Antalya became in two decades one of the rivieras of Europe. His(her,its) possibilities of tourist extension are still important: the Mediterranean coast of Europe is considerable. Two dangers threaten it: the concreting of coast(ribs) (still limited, but badly checked(controlled) by the authorities) and the too big concentration of tourists of the same nationality in the same place. Among his(her,its) assets(trump cards):

- The climate, the sea, the sun, the Mediterranean landscapes in a cost lesser than somewhere else in Europe.

- The juxtaposition of the Turkish and Greek cultures (which(who) left big classic sites which are well worth those of Greece: Ephesus in particular). The cohabitation of the Islam and the memories(souvenirs) of the Christianity.
The sites of Xanthos and Létôon: archaeology.
Cappadoce is one of embellish with images the most exploited(run) by tourist Turkey, although it is again little visited because of its situation in several hundreds of kilometers of the big tourist concentrations. It is moreover what what protects her(it) because the region is quite small and very vulnerable. Situated too close to beaches(ranges), the site of Pamukkale (the other classic postcard of Turkey) did not survive. Among his(her,its) assets(trump cards) the unusual of its landscapes: we would imagine on the moon! And the discovery of an unusual civilization (and disappeared) with its troglodyte housing environments and his(her,its) subterranean cities, the pleasure to cross(to go through) on foot a microcomputing region. To discover ave his(her) children before the region is put under bell for its conservation, or totally destroyed if nobody is careful there.

Regions to discover The coast of the Black Sea in its oriental part(party) for those who are afraid of the hot season of the Mediterranean Sea (the climate is there softer) and the big tourist complexes. Among assets(trump cards): an original culture (mixture of Turkish, Georgian and Armenian influence, it is the country of Lazes) and green landscapes which we do not expect to find in Turkey. It is the only place of Europe where we cultivate the tea.
Trébizonde, a balcony on Black Sea ( fr ).: Chris Kutschera Les's report big cities of the internal Anatolia conceal unsuspected cultural wealth: the architecture seljoukide (previous to that of the Ottomans) and the practice of the Islam. In cities as Konya or Kayseri, we are far from laic Turkey wanted by Atatürk. The atmosphere to be few there austere, but the warm population. This region also allows to discover him(it) the rests of a disappeared civilization and which remains mysterious, that of the Hittites.