If you consider visiting Van, I recommend you to take train. This route is still not popular enough among tourists because eastern Turkey had gone through violent conflicts. As long as you don’t get yourself in trouble intentionally, you’ll be safe though. I traveled Eastern Turkey by hitchhiking last year with my wife, and felt really safe and welcomed. People are very friendly, food is great, the nature is like Switzerland. I’m sure that this area will be too touristic to visit in the future, so I recommend you see there before it gets hit by tourism.
If you want to do a full trip in Turkey, this is my route recommendation: İstanbul -> flight -> Cappadocia -> Bus or hitchhike -> Urfa -> Mardin -> Hasankeyf -> Van -> Doğubeyazıt —> İran. These towns are all wonderful, and probably the most different beauties I’ve ever seen. Highly recommended.
There is a lot of military check points, many undercover cops. So you need to manage your ambition about politics when you’re there. just be a tourist and you’ll be fine :)
>So you need to manage your ambition about politics
A polite way of saying "don't be that jerk that goes to someone else's home/town/county/state/country just to tell them what they're doing wrong" which really shouldn't be that hard to do if you're distracted by all the other touristy things you should be doing.
Edit: I know this is gonna get down-voted because it's not "nice" but it's true. You shouldn't go to where someone else lives and tell them they suck or they're doing it wrong and expect to be treated nicely.
Anyone downvoting you is an idiot. It's disrespectful towards locals and unless you are of the exact same culture there is a ton implicit cultural context one is not aware of. So, unless one has some concrete mission (in which case one is not a tourist but entirely something else) any disrespectful comments are likely to only hurt feelings and project ill will towards the transgresssor.
Any tourist activist is a pure idiot. People are quite capable of taking care of themselves, and if something human behaviour related looks like it needs fixing it's likely a non trivial thing to fix.
I'd say people need to recognize that the role of tourist and activist are different, and don't combine well. Know why you're there, and take the appropriate precautions for your role, and you're probably going to be fine. But don't show up as an activist and expect to be treated like a tourist.
Lake Van Express(Eastwards:Sundays and Tuesdays, Westwards:Tuesdays and Thursdays). Eastern Express, which works between Ankara and Kars, is running sleepers full.
Having heard the hype about this famous breakfast I have to admit to being a little underwhelmed when I experienced it myself, so ymmv. Apart from that my trip to Eastern Turkey was brilliant and as with others I wholeheartedly recommend it. So much amazing history and scenery, friendly people, easy travel. I'd suggest it's safer with at least two of you and I'm not sure I'd visit Diyarbakir area if I went again now. Van castle is amazing. Kars and Ani are worth a visit. Take immodium with you. Don't mention the Armenian genocide.
Don't discuss politics is standard guidebook advice, isn't it? Along with don't travel to warzones, don't take drugs, always use condoms, don't utilise the services of the local sex workers etc. etc. All the things that you or I would know to never risk, but apparently some still do, hence the advice is still thought worth giving..
I gave it special mention as it's an especially sensitive topic, and you could argue that a conscientious tourist should have at least some awareness of the history of the area before they visit.
For example, on the way to Ani our taxi driver stopped at a memorial at the side of the road and told us hundreds of Turks were killed by Armenians in various horrendous ways here. Never mind that the generally received version is pretty much the exact opposite! I kept my lip firmly buttoned.
As a Turkish who's not in denial, I can tell you that some people may go great lengths to change your mind. I can guarantee that you'll be, at the very least, annoyed for no reason. It's a very sensitive subject and has been a propaganda factor from both sides. It's not that I'm insensitive to the people who lost their lives in this genocide, I'm just claiming that it's been abused.
Both Armenians and Turkish people in the area are otherwise peaceful.
Could you please clarify what you mean by the claim that the genocide has been abused? Should the Armenians be less outraged, stop fighting for its recognition, exclude it from history curriculum or something?
Both parties are abused. No body gives a damn about Armenians or Turks. Not really. Other countries are using this to exploit both countries however it is possible. That's enough abuse. It's politics and it's disgusting.
Turkey needs to recognize the Genocide, instead it's putting all its effort into denial propaganda inside and outside Turkey. They even made Armenians not bringing it up a precondition for opening the border. Until Turkey can be honest Armenians will fight for truth to be preserved outside of Turkey. This may be an abstract issue for you but most Armenians today still are just one generation away from survivors and their stories. Should Armenians just let Turkey keep adding insult to injury? This is an article about an area where Armenians lived for millennia and there are none left by now, how did that happen?
You're completely missing my point. Although the main issue is the violence and genocide dispute between 2 nations (just making an objective remark that covers both sides), you can't just look at this matter only from that perspective. It's all about power leverage and gain. I have Armenian friends living in Turkey labeled traitors by the diaspora in the States who are not oppressed like their counterparts in Turkey. That is just another disgusting aspect of humans. It's hypocrisy.
It's not a "dispute", no more than Holocaust was. You trying to make this some kind of argument that has two sides is an insult to me. Jewish people don't have to listen to Germans complaining how Jewish killed so many Germans in Warsaw. Turks drafted our men to "labor battalions", slaughtered them, and slaughtered remaining women and children. I have heard first hand stories of people who survived but lost most of their family. The pain is real, I can't look at it abstractly. And the nonsense about Armenian friends living in Turkey labeled traitors is nonsense. Armenians outside Turkey understand they live under an oppressive regime (see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_301_(Turkish_Penal_Cod...), and can be murdered any time by nationalists like Hrant Dink was so we don't expect them to be to vocal about Genocide.
You're still not seeing my point. I'm talking about some utterly different aspect but it seems like due to your closer involvement it's unable for you to isolate and try to understand and question that point. I wasn't denying anything including Turkish State's penal code (which is not solely directed to the Armenian population) or suggesting that Armenians shouldn't be vocal on the matter or devaluating anyone's pain but you on the other hand are exactly doing that by calling some also real pain nonsense. You are the one being aggressive. There are Turkish citizens of Armenian origin who are under pressure from people living the USA. It's of course not the general action from abroad but it exists. Still, I see that you have lost the ability for scientific reasoning. Try to lose that dogmatic point of view and try to calmly evaluate what people are saying. This way you're just hurting your cause.
As I mentioned in the other comment thread, you'll enjoy the culture and the relationships if you manage your political ambition. Travel gives its best taste when you focus on the moment that you are.
Being jewish isn't a problem in Turkey in general. In Southeast Turkey (Kars, Van etc) it's probably more of a concern if you're Kurdish due to historical tensions with the PKK and Kurds in general.
Just as a note, breakfast in the rest of Turkey is also similarly diverse and excellent :-) You'll notice that each region has its own small specialty additions of spices, jams, pastries, eggs, etc. And often different fruits and vegetables depending on what's seasonally available in the area. It's true that breakfast in Istanbul doesn't quite compare to breakfast on the beach or in the mountain with tomatoes and cucumbers picked freshly from the garden, but still, quite a great breakfast can be had in the city.
Sounds like it overlaps a great deal with Polish breakfasts. Lots of cold sliced meats, cheeses, vegetables, breads, preserves, etc, with some variation. A friend from college who grew up in Kansas once visited and remarked on it. That may have been when I first became acutely aware of the difference between the typical Polish breakfast and its American counterpart.
A restauraunt serving Turkish breakfast recently opened in my town -- I had no idea it was such a thing. I'll have to find an excuse to try it!
Also, it's interesting seeing cognates in languages I don't know: peynir (I looked it up) reminded me of paneer (which at least in the U.S. is what we call the cheese in Indian food), and it turns out the word was (at least according to wiktionary) borrowed by both languages from Farsi.
Turkish breakfast and more broadly Turkish food is great. You don't need to go to this particular city to experience that. Though let's celebrate the funny ways word of mouth has to spread the news.
If you want to do a full trip in Turkey, this is my route recommendation: İstanbul -> flight -> Cappadocia -> Bus or hitchhike -> Urfa -> Mardin -> Hasankeyf -> Van -> Doğubeyazıt —> İran. These towns are all wonderful, and probably the most different beauties I’ve ever seen. Highly recommended.