A day and a half’s travel to Ankara from Istanbul and on into Cappadocia is enough to make you realise that Turkey’s public transport infrastructure is greatly superior to that of much of Australia, despite Turkey being a relatively poorer country. We left the Hotel Ersu and walked to a conveniently close fast tram stop. Cost for any length of trip: a flat YTL1.40, roughly 1 Aussie dollar.
Then across the Bosphorus by ferry, 15 minutes later we were at Haydarpasa Railway Station, the station for Asia built for the Baghdad Railway in the1890s.
The glorious interior of Hydarpasa Station
We travelled for 4 hours by fast and comfortable conventional train to Eskisehir, where we changed to the new bullet train to Ankara. On this we reached speeds of up to 245 km/hr, travelling in leather armchairs in business class, with power for my laptop! First and Business class to Ankara was only YTL34 all up, for a journey of c 500 km.
Boarding the Ankara express
Thence a short taxi ride to the welcoming Hotel Spor, round the corner from Meydani Ulus, the heart of old Ankara.
After visiting the justly famous Museum of Anatolian Civilisations, we caught a Metro (YTL1.70) to the vast, well designed and organised bus station, ASTI. Like so many other similar transprort termini in Turkey, Greece and Egypt, this leaves Sydney’s Eddy Ave for dead, and again reveals how poorly organised Sydney transport is. Scores of buses arrive and depart on three levels, and buses can also fuel up on the spot. It’s like an airport, but vastly superior to the overpriced shemozzle that is Mascot. (By the way, if melbourne can do it with their Southern Cross bus/rail interchange, why can’t Sydney?)
ASTI bus terminal, Ankara
On the bus to Cappadocia, we were served tea gratis by the stewards! Murrays take note. Finally arrived by mini-bus at the exceptional Kirkit Pension, where we dined in a cave listening to gypsy music: a zither and drums.
So in less than 2 days: tram, ferry, train, bullet train, taxi, metro, bus and mini-bus!
20 and 21 April.
see also Great Eastern Lines
Like you said, if only Sydney’s transport system was as good as this!! xx