A restful night in Amman before we fly to Turkey to continue our Holy Land Tour.
We landed in the capital of Turkey, Ankara. Ankara is not only the cosmopolitan capital of Turkey but also home to the Museum of Anatolian Civilization and enormous hilltop mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Republic of Turkey.
Museum of Anatolian Civilization
This museum has a large collection of artifacts dating from Palaeolithic Age (8000BC) to Lydian Period (1200-546BC) to Classic Period and Ankara through the ages (includes Greek, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine period.
Anitkabir
Anitkabir (Turkish literal as ‘grave monument’) is a mausoleum complex of the founder father of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, is situated. The mausoleum complex is situated at a site known as Rasattepe (Observation Hill). Construction of this complex began in 1944. It took almost 10 years to complete.
The complex consists of 4 main parts – the Road of Lions, the Ceremonial Plaza, the Hall of Honor and the Peace Park.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk served as the first president of the Republic of Turkey until his death in 1938. He was not only the leader of the Turkish War of Independence and widely admired by his peers – other world leaders namely the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy to German Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler.
Information
- Roads of Lions is a 262m-long pedestrian walkway lined on both sides by 12 pairs of lions carved in Hittite-like style.
- Area of the Ceremonial Plaza is 129m long and 84m wide to accommodate 15,000 people.
- Atatürk’s tomb is located in the Hall of Honor. The Hall is specially designed with a basement level where Atatürk’s body is buried.
Tuz Gölü
A brief stopover before proceeding to Cappadocia.
Tuz Gölü is Turkish for Lake Tuz meaning Salt Lake. This is the second largest lake in Turkey with 1,665km2 surface area and one of the largest hypersaline lakes in the world. With no outlets, this lake is fed by two major streams – groundwater and surface water.
Most of the year, the lake is very shallow. In winter, part of the salt is dissolved into the fresh water making the lake 324% salinity. During the summer, the lake dries up exposing thick salt layers.
The salinity concentration surpasses that of ocean water. What does it all mean? This means that the water in Lake Tuz is so saltish that it crystalizes into Sodium Chloride. Sodium chloride refers to salt.
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