A Capital Built on Layers
Ankara sits where history keeps reasserting itself. The capital of modern Turkey occupies terrain that Hittites fortified, that Romans built into a sprawling trading metropolis of some 200,000 inhabitants, that Galatian Celts made one of their strongholds, that Ottomans reinforced and garrisoned. Walk uphill through the old quarters and you move through centuries almost physically—cobbled streets climbing toward the castle ruins, mosque doorways carved centuries apart standing within a few hundred meters of each other, Roman stone foundations running beneath Ottoman plaster. This is not a city that erased its past when it became the seat of the Turkish Republic in 1923. Instead, it layered the new on top, and left enough of the old visible that you can read the stratification.
The Citadel and Its Surroundings
Start at Ankara Castle itself, that volcanic outcrop rising 150 meters above the left bank of the Ankara River. The castle's double walls and towers have been reinforced since the Phrygians worked the same stone in the 8th century BC; you can still climb them and survey the sprawling city and distant mountains from the vantage point they built. Entry is free, and the walk up takes you through the Hamamönü neighborhood, where Ottoman architecture clusters in tight, steep blocks—narrow lanes between buildings faced in traditional stone, small tea gardens tucked into courtyards, the texture of something that survived rather than something restored.
Nearby, the Sultan Alaeddin Mosque dates to 1178 according to the inscription on its walnut pulpit, though it has seen many modifications since. The Arslanhane Mosque, built in 1290 in Seljuk style and repaired in 1330, sits higher up the hill and rewards the effort—its interior is supported by a forest of finely carved wooden columns. In 2023, this mosque was inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List as part of a group of five wooden mosques in Central Anatolia.
The Roman Theatre sits 1 kilometer east of Ulus, its stage and backstage area still visible though the seating remains largely unrestored. Statues recovered from the site now occupy the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations, which holds an excellent display ranging from prehistory through the proto-Greek and Roman periods—the depth and breadth of what has been excavated here reflects both the site's significance and the layers of occupation underneath the modern streets.
Ulus: The Old City Center
The Ulus district constitutes what remains of republican Ankara's original focus. The Victory Monument stands in Ulus Square—a marble and bronze statue of Atatürk on horseback erected in 1927, inscribed in Ottoman Turkish script because it predates the alphabet reform of 1928, making it one of the few republican monuments still using Arabic characters.
The Temple of Augustus (Monumentum Ancyranum) stands beside the Hacı Bayram Mosque, its side walls and ornate doorway still intact. The Romans built this over a Phrygian temple around 25 BC after establishing Galatia as a province with Ankara (then Ancyra) as its capital. The temple originally housed reliefs and inscriptions documenting the Acts of Augustus—the Res Gestae Divi Augusti—carved directly into marble. Only fragments remain, but the structure itself is remarkable for having survived five centuries of use as a Byzantine church before it was abandoned.
The Roman Baths, built under Emperor Caracalla around 200 AD, follow the classical design of cold, warm, and hot rooms. The relative proportions of these spaces suggest Ankara's winters were as chilly then as they are now. The Column of Julianus, a 15-meter stone column erected in 362 CE, marks the visit of the pagan Roman Emperor Julian, who stopped in the city while marching toward his ill-fated campaign in Persia.
The Museum of the War of Independence occupies the building that housed the first site of the Turkish Republican Parliament from 1920 to 1924—the War of Independence was directed from here, and the rooms contain photographs and memorabilia from that period. The Cardo Maximus, a 216-meter stretch of Roman road 7 meters wide, runs north from Anafartlar Street; it was discovered in 1995 and its artifacts are now in the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations.
Museums and Specialized Collections
Beyond the large archaeological collections, Ankara houses several more specialized museums. The Koç Museum, housed in the Çengel Han—a caravanserai built in 1523—contains exhibits on transport, communication, and science since the 1850s. The Chess Museum holds an improbable abundance of chess sets from ancient times to the modern era, including unusual variants like three-sided games. The Ulucanlar Prison Museum occupies a building that functioned as a barracks, then as a brutal instrument of political repression after 1925. It held up to 800 inmates, was used extensively for political imprisonment and torture during various periods, and saw 19 executions in its yard. It closed in 2006 and became a museum in 2011, now open to visitors as a stark record of a particular historical moment.
The City's Agricultural Legacy
The name Ankara entered European languages through trade in Angora wool and mohair—the city's pears, honey, and Muscat grapes still anchor the region's agricultural reputation. Though Ankara sits in one of Turkey's driest regions and is surrounded mostly by steppe vegetation, the city itself maintains significant green areas—72 square meters of park per inhabitant, an unusual measure of urban amenity for a capital of its size.
When to Visit
The winters that the proportions of the Roman bathhouse attest to are real: Ankara's central Anatolian location means cold, often snowy seasons. Spring and autumn offer milder temperatures and are the more comfortable times for walking the steep streets of the old city and exploring the castle approaches. Summer can be hot, though the elevation moderates extremes compared to lower regions of Anatolia.
If you're deciding whether Ankara merits time in your itinerary, consider that it offers something Istanbul cannot: the actual layers of Anatolia's long history exposed in a single walk uphill, and the quieter atmosphere of a working capital rather than a tourist destination. The city reveals itself to those willing to climb.