In Kars at 8:00am on the morning of the Sept 23rd we caught a train destined for Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. This would be the longest train leg of the journey so far covering something like 1446km and lasting 26-27 hours. In some regards it was a boring journey, just sitting in a train compartment listening to Audible books or looking out the window. But on the other hand it was also interesting. The entire length of the journey we passed through, was bare mountainous agricultural land. We also saw many villages where the basic living standards would later contrast markedly with the cities of Ankara and Instanbul.

As I noted above we arrived in Ankara about 10:30am and immediately set out to visit the Mausoleum complex of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

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For those that do not know about Atatürk he is the military commander that defeated the allied forces on Gallipoli, led the Turkish forces after WWI that defeated the allied forces trying to breakup the Ottoman Empire and eventually was responsible for founding the Turkish Republic. While the nature of the secular Republic he founded may be under threat in recent years we saw many monuments and tributes to this man in our journey across Turkey. And in my mind it is without doubt that he was one of the great figures of the 20th Century.

In the photos below, numbers 9 and 10, is the resting place of Imet Inonu who was Atatürk's right hand man and the politician who suceeded him as president.

Not far from our hotel in downtown Ankara Nina and I found Gençlik Parki which interestingly has its own Luna Park