Our 2022 Trip to Turkiye

Cappadocia means the "Land of Beautiful Horses".  It was the only location on our itinerary where we stayed for two nights.  We had nine places to visit on 17 October which was the following day of our arrival. However, after our visit to the Salt Lake, our Turkish Guide, Yavuz, suggested that we visit the following places a day ahead, before we check in at Kalsedon Cave Suitesin: -Esentepe Hill -Goreme Open Air Museum -The Tatlarin Underground City I read that the  Tatlarin underground city  we visited, at the end of the day, was first discovered by the village people in 1975. It is located on a hill called "Kale" (Castle) near the province of Nevsehir in Cappadocia .  The site was cleaned and opened to tourism in 1991. I want to write about it first because there are lots of history about the underground cities of Cappadocia.  This is a view of part of its exterior. Here is a closer view from the inside.  It was the terrace of the dugout shelter...

Ankara, the capital of Turkiye, is about two hours drive from Bolu.  This is where the final resting place of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is located. We read in our history book about Mustafa Kemal, the founding father of the Republic of Turkey.  On 16 October, we got the chance to visit  Anıtkabir , which is the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. It was opened for visits on 1 September 1953. The mausoleum is a distance away from the main road.  The tree lined road we walked through is known as the Peace Park in honor of Atatürk's famous expression "Peace at home, peace in the world."  I read from Wikipedia that there are around 50,000 decorative trees, flowers and shrubs in 104 varieties, donated from around 25 countries. These are trees we could see facing the mausoleum.  We had to go through security before we can enter the site. The building did not look impressive when we first looked at it. That is till we walked up a flight of steps, seen in this ph...