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Eight welcoming questions about the things Turkey is best known for, from busy cities to everyday life. Everyone can join in, young and old.
Bazaar browser 0–3 · Wanderer of old streets 4–6 · Turkey connoisseur 7–8
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Turks often call their flag 'al bayrak', the red flag. A white crescent and star on red was already the flag of the Ottoman Empire from 1844, and a law from 1936 fixes the flag's exact measurements and its precise shade of red.
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The Bosporus strait cuts Istanbul in two: about two-thirds of its people live on the European side and the rest in Asia. Ferries carry people between the continents all day long, and since 2013 trains also run through a tunnel under the water.
Photo: Hunanuk, Wikimedia Commons, CC0.
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Sunrise balloon flights are especially popular around the town of Göreme, when dozens of balloons drift over the strange rocky valleys at once. Below the ground, the region hides whole underground cities: the biggest, Derinkuyu, goes down about 85 metres and may once have sheltered as many as 20,000 people with their animals.
Photo: Arian Zwegers from Brussels, Belgium, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.
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Very finely ground coffee, water and sugar if wanted are heated together in a little pot called a cezve until they just come to the boil. The grounds stay in the cup and sink to the bottom, a glass of water is served alongside, and UNESCO lists Turkish coffee culture as part of the world's cultural heritage.
Photo: Eaeeae, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Inside, thousands of tiles from the town of Iznik and painted flowers, mostly in shades of blue, decorate the walls, and about 260 windows let in the daylight. The mosque was built between 1609 and 1617 and is surrounded by six slender minarets.
Photo: Pedro Szekely from Los Angeles, USA, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.
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Warm spring water full of minerals flows down the hillside and leaves behind a white stone called travertine, which slowly builds up into pools and terraces. Pamukkale means 'cotton castle' in Turkish, and in the nearby Cleopatra's Pool you can swim among sunken ancient marble columns.
Photo: Biologg, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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Tulips were already grown in Constantinople, today's Istanbul, as early as the year 1055, and they became a symbol of the Ottoman sultans. European diplomats wrote home about them in the 1500s, and the word 'tulip' itself is thought to come from a Turkish word for turban.
Photo: Dina L, Wikimedia Commons, CC0.
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In Turkey this sweet is called lokum: soft little cubes made from starch and sugar, often flavoured with rosewater and dusted with icing sugar. Its name is thought to come from an Arabic word meaning 'morsel' or 'mouthful', and sales rose after the Narnia film came out in 2005.
Photo: Quick fix, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.
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