Turkey by Region

I came to Çankırı by accident, the way you come to most places that matter. A delayed bus connection in Ankara, a kind stranger with a spare room, a week that became a month that became the better part of a year. It is not a city that announces itself. The guidebooks that mention it at all do so in passing, as a waypoint between more photogenic destinations.

They are missing the point. Çankırı — ancient Germanicopolis, capital of its own province, population around 80,000 — rewards the traveller who arrives without expectations. It has a salt cave that has been mined since at least Roman times and possibly since the Hittites. It sits at the foot of Ilgaz Mountain, one of Turkey's better-kept ski secrets. Its Friday market is the best food market I have found in north-central Anatolia. Its castle hill looks out over a landscape that hasn't changed fundamentally in five centuries.

None of this is packaged for tourists. That is precisely why it's worth coming.