My first observation of Ankara as our plane descended this afternoon was that it looked like southern California. Actually, that was someone else's comment, and I don't konw that I would have thought of it myself, but it seemed a good description of the dry, scrubby countryside.
My real first observation, one that I actually made versus taking from someone else, was of the mosques. They all have minarets, naturally, but what really catches your eye from the air is their silver domes. At the right angle, the city was almost twinkling with reflected sun.
Riding from the airport to the hotel, I saw a couple of minarets without mosques. On one, I thought I could see where a building used to be attached, but another just appeared to be free-standing. I wonder what that's about.
Monday, May 07, 2007
First observations of Ankara
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2 comments:
My guess on the stand-alone minarets is that they are residue of the big earthquake in 1999. Maybe the quake damaged the buildings enough that they couldn't be used, but the shaking wasn't severe enough to actually knock over the tower. There are lots of buildings around that look like they are in deep restoration. I presume they're still quake leftovers, too.
And apparently I was wrong about the earthquake. It affected the western part of Turkey, but not really Ankara, according to my host. All the construction is really just construction.
Stand by for further retractions.
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