Turkey

   General Topics

  The Turkish tourism ministry advertises for its country with the apt slogan "discover the variety". Its just this variety that is characteristic for the land between Europe and Asia. Turkey is a country of the modern and the traditions, the oceans and the lakes, the holiday hurly-burly and the antique. Turkey unites occident and Orient, offers bathing and skiing resorts, as well as a great number of sights ...

  Unfortunately it is this variety that leads to prejudices of the European, who only notice this section and reduce the country to an oriental cliche.Turkey is for the majority of the european population another Islamic country. An incorporation into EU is considered with skepticism, sometimes are still believes western world didn't forget the threat through the Ottoman empire until today and the Turks would still stand before Vienna. Even the average tourist combines with his vacatio destination next to sun, beach and discos- what he would also find in a European destination like Spain-Orient and a fairy tale of "Thousand and one night", belly dancers, bazaars, mosques.. ...

  This vacation world offers only one section of the country and sometimes is played for the tourists well known, because the traveling industry knows exactly what the visitors expect. So for example, belly dance doesn't belong to the normal Turkish leisure time conversation, and one can also spend their money in modern shopping walls and not only in the "oriental" bazaar. Turkey is a quite modern and no "Islamic" country.

  Indeed most of the population counts to the muslimisc belief, but since Atatürks reforms there is a strict separation between state and religion. Belief is something private and has no influence on the totally wordly government form of the Turkish republic.
By the way, Turkey is the only country with müslimic population in which there are these principles-

  In the country there are big contrasts between modern and tradition. The west, the big cities and the coasts with their tourism are orientated towards the west world. Working women in good positions aren't rare and there is a "modern" way of thinking. The more one goes east or into the little settled areas of the anatolic distance, the more the orient is near, the strouger are the structures in the extended family and the stronger are the rules.The structure-weak east and the home land are also substantial poorer than the west, they couldn't profit from the industrialization and tourism. The villages live from the agriculture, a refrigerator or a washing machine is still inaccessible luxury. But even in the cities in the west there is a great difference between poor and rich, the poor have to exist of dat laboser jobs with an average salary of 100-200 € a month, while the rich buy themselves villas at the Bosporus for several millions dollars. To Europeans all these contrasts way sometimes become very confusing.

  But nevertheless Turkey is a unique state, carried from a positively understood nationalism and the love of everyone to his country..

Climate:

  Turkey has at least 3 climate zones. Holidaymakers normally know the Mediterranean climate at the coast with hot, sunny summers and no rain, wild, rainy winters and the typical southern vegetation. But that's not all. Central Anatolien is characterised by hot, dry summers and cold, snowy winters with temperatures up to - 40 degrees. The amount of precipitation in these areas is extremely small, the landscape steppe-like. The area of the black – sea coast finally has a quite moderate climate, in summer the temperatures don't go above 30 degrees, in winter hardly under 0 °degrees, it also rains in summer sometimes there deciduous forests grow,hazelnuts and tea are cultivated. Within the individual climate fields there is a grading- so the southeast-coast is considerably hotter than the westcoast. A special position comes to Istanbul, sited between two seas. The seasons here are outlined very clearly, the summer is quite warm, the winter really cold around 0 degrees, sometimes with snow and hail.The vegetation is mixed, the European deciduous tree grows as well as the southern palms. It's funny, but if the the summer in Istanbul is good, it's bad in Germany, and the other way. So to say: Istanbul has a very beatiful summer!