Anitkabir

Today started with a cultural visit to Anitkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the leader of the Turkish War of Independence and the founder and first President of the Republic of Turkey. A hugely impressive memorial, highly guarded and very well maintained.

Watched the changing of the guards and an official ceremony, attended by dozens of little school children, when a wreath was laid at Atatürk's tomb. Not sure what exactly it was all about, though.

As you can see, the weather has been scorchio today - just the job for sitting in the minibus for a 100k trip to our next destination, the Ticaret Odast (Chamber of Commerce) in Beypazari a town and district of Ankara Province in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey. (I did, at least, use some of the travel time to work on the Group report!) Our hosts, as everywhere we have visted, were very hospitable and after a presentation and some discussion we were treated to a four course lunch in a delightful outdoor restaurant.

Beypazari is a very affluent, residential town with smart housing and quaint, cobbled streets with lots of local goodies to buy. Their speciality is carrots - I managed to resist - honoured on lamposts, Christmas decoration style.

Back to the hotel for less than 45 minutes as we had to go out again for dinner - this time meeting an official from the Ministry of Education. A bit of a formal 'do' with a presentation about a Government project to tackle child obesity that they are now looking for foreign partners to join. After a three courses dinner, they might well be thinking about setting-up a project to tackle adult study-visit obesity..