Türkiye is currently experiencing warm autumn days, making it one of the best times to travel in the country. From the Aegean coast and the Turkish Riviera, where it is almost still summer, to the scenic east, this rich geography offers much to discover and Türkiye’s long history is amply illustrated by the country’s 22 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. In addition, Türkiye offers extraordinary museums, museums that symbolize the cities in which they live and that shed light on the storied history of Anatolia.
With the artefacts it houses, İstanbul Archaeology Museums, located on the grounds of Topkapı Palace, is one of the wealthiest archaeology museums in the world. It holds more than one million artefacts belonging to the civilisations within the borders of the late Ottoman Empire. The complex’s main building, the Archaeology Museum, is one of the few buildings in the world built mainly as a museum. This excellent museum holds the Brankhit statues of the Didyma-Milet Sacred Road from the Archaic Age to the end of the Roman Age, the Kore and Kouros (young girl and boy) statues, the Lion Statue of the Halicarnassus Mausoleum, the Head of Aphrodite of the famous Pergamon Zeus Altar, Alexander the Great portrait, the sculpture works discovered in Aphrodisias, Ephesos and Miletos, the three great marble cities of the Roman period. The museum is also home to numerous artefacts unearthed during excavations led by Osman Hamdi Bey, the founder of museology in Türkiye and the museum’s first director in the 19th century. One of them is the world-famous Alexander Sarcophagus, unearthed in the Sidon King Necropolis during excavations conducted by Osman Hamdi Bey between 1887 and 1888. Rest in the lovely cafe of this eye-catching museum, which overlooks Gülhane Park, and enjoy the elegance of its building, one of İstanbul’s most beautiful and spectacular examples of Neo-Classical architecture.