Ankara Part 2

Part 2 of Turkeys capital, Ankara. I'm going to keep stressing that fact, as the vast majority of tourists I met didn't know that, and thought either Istanbul or Antalya was. But I digress.

Now, as you probably all know by now, I love a good varied museum. And no museum is more varied and interesting than the Rahmi Koc museum. He is basically a very wealthy Turk who spend his money on collecting things. I've got to hand it to him, he's got good taste. You name it he has collected it, and had it displayed in his museums. (he has two as far as I'm aware, Ankara and Istanbul. Istanbul had more, but I preffered Ankara becuase it was more intimate and felt like I had literally just wandered into a wing of his mansion and he was about to walk in the room)

 Antique roller coaster for dolls

 The ducks may quack the same, but with a Turkish accent :P

 I was distraught seeing this in the museum, I used to play on one, and i think it's still somewhere in my parents house!

Turns out, Messerschmidt didn't just make planes

The museum is good value too. Around 7 lira for a good few hours worked out pretty good for me!

Next up the roman baths. Before I show you the pictures, the sign there said there had been some "light" restoration. Most of it looked rebuilt and modernised to me, but I'll leave you to make your own minds up.

I wasnt too impressed. But there's loads of tombstones, steles, memorative coloms and sculptures dotted around, of which this one with a diamond on it particularly took my fancy.

Lastly (for this post) is the Ulucanlar prison museum. It was a notorious prison even up to recently, and has now been opened up as a museum. There's just about enough translation to get through, but it's interesting enough by itself. It's also got quite a few wax models about, so you can really see and understand what life was like in the prison.

Several executions were carried out in the prison, using the set of gallows seen above. The odd thing about the prison is its right in the city centre, and in some parts you can hear the hustle and bustle of outside, although I imagine it was more secluded when it was built more than a hundred years ago.