Boğazkale

After a no pleasant day spent in Ankara we drove 200 km east to Boğazkale. The guidebook suggests ‘it is a pleasant place to spend the night, with such noise as there is coming from honking geese, crowing cockerels and braying donkeys’. It was all true since we ended up staying in a garden full of apple trees and an ageing rooster with a sore throat (Deniz of Aşıkoğlu, thanks for your hospitality). The sleepy little village has one bakery, a few small shops and two çayhanes (tea houses). As we parked in front of a bakery, Shlakiyah's nazar,... drew Murat’s attention who promptly invited us to a çayhane. Soon after, we all ended up touring Hattuşa, which cover a hilltop to the south of the village. Hattuşa was once a capital of Hittites, a people who formed one of the eldest Anatolian civilizations, who conquered Babylon and signed world’s first peace treaty with the Egyptian pharaohs, over 3000 years ago. Today the ruins are spreading out over 6 km in length and comprise a few statues, walls, probably one of the oldest tunnels, and rock carvings. The whole site is strangely tranquil; due to its antiquity and absence of tourist crowds.