The best museums Turkey

The Ethnological Museum traces the traditions of Cappadocia in scenes of daily life, ideal for getting acquainted with local customs and habits. As the museum is also a restaurant and café, it is very pleasant to eat quality Turkish food and to visit the museum before or afterwards. Interior room and terrace. Perhaps only one drawback: the place is spacious and can accommodate groups, which consequently make a stopover there.

The city of Aphrodisias was destroyed in the 4th century. The museum includes the ancient site itself (from the 3rd century BC) and the marble quarries located to the north-east of the city. It was these quarries that gave the city of Aphrodisias its prosperity. The place is interesting especially for its ancient statues. Indeed, the famous school of the city produced for a long time effigies of quality for many Roman cities. Steles, tombs, coins and many other objects found on the site are also exposed.

This museum was originally located in the 13th century medersa of Hunat Hatun Külliyesi. Its contents have been housed in a historic 15th century house since 1998. And it is indeed the building that is worth seeing with its black and white stone facade and its splendid ceilings. Otherwise, you can admire a collection of ceramics, costumes, weapons and usual objects as well as a reconstruction of a house and a nomad tent (yurt).

St. Peter's Castle is the headquarters of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology, founded by G. Bass in 1973. The finds of divers during excavations of wrecks, including the 3,400-year-old wreck east of Kaş, are displayed there. Every part of the castle is used to display the objects or stage reconstructions. The Gothic chapel of the Hospitallers, houses a fragment of the frieze of the mausoleum. The visit of the castle is a superb walk in its enclosure.

Camii Kilise or Aşağı Camii or Büyük Kilise, the Byzantine church of St. Gregory of Naziance (theologian, one of the fathers of the Greek Church) dates from the 4th century. It became a mosque after the population exchange of the 1920s. It houses a magnificent pulpit and an iconostasis of chiselled wood.

Sivişli Kilise or the Church of St. Annargiros has a dome and columns carved into the rock as well as 19th century frescoes. On leaving, take the stairs on the left to enjoy a superb panorama of the village.

The excavations that have been carried out in the region have mainly fed the museum in Ankara, but some of the finds have been transferred here. These remains concern mainly the Neolithic period (about 9000 BC), the Chalcolithic period (about 4000 BC), and the Assyrian settlements (end of the third millennium BC). There is also a small ethnographic section and a collection of Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman coins.

The archaeological museum exhibits a model of the sanctuary of Zeus as it originally was. This life-size reproduction of the original, which is now in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, is worth a visit. Also, a beautiful collection of Roman and Byzantine architectural elements as well as funerary steles. It is recommended to visit it before your visit to the acropolis. Beautiful collection of statues. Finally, an ethnographic gallery, testimony of the habits and customs and the craft industry at the time of the Ottomans. Tea room next to the museum.

The Nevşehir museum is very small but it is free. There are two exhibition halls, archaeological and ethnographic. The latter displays objects from different periods going back to the Bronze Age, and some interesting sarcophagi. On the second floor there is an ethnographic collection of carpets and jewelry. The museum conducts excavations in the village of Şahin Efendi (near Ürgüp), the ancient Sobessos. Friendly staff, especially the director of the museum.

The archaeological museum in the city of Kayseri reminds us how Anatolia was the cradle of great civilizations that shone at various times. His collection includes finds from the Hittite city of Kanesh (Kültepe), tablets engraved with cuneiform inscriptions as well as Hellenistic and Roman objects. In the garden are two impressive lions from the 7th century BC. Although the museum is not very big, it is quite interesting.

This museum is the work of the Suna-Inan Foundation Kıraç. He gave the art world and the city of Istanbul an invaluable gift. On five floors, the museum occupies a completely refurbished 1893 building, where works of art from the couple's private collection are displayed. The works are exhibited by theme. The first floor is structured around the Weights and Measures of Anatolia and the Earthenware and Ceramics of Kütahya. The first part is presented as the only collection on this scale in the field: it contains various instruments used in Anatolia over the years. Kütahya's collection includes more than 400 pieces. If you have visited the Topkapı palace beforehand, the second floor will be a perfect addition. In a spacious and airy setting, paintings on the Ottoman Empire are displayed. You can see, spread mainly over the last two centuries, portraits of the sultan but also paintings of the orientalist current, the last one being the imaginary reflection of the painters of the time, since no one was allowed to enter a harem. The foundation of many fantasies in the West, Western literature has been strongly imbued with them, thus mixing imagination with reality. The painting called The Turtle Tamer is presented as the most expensive in the collection. As for the top three floors, they are reserved for occasional exhibitions designed to showcase young talents, representing various trends.