Visiting Ankara, Turkey: Top Sights on Foot

Ankara is Turkey’s capital, a city where ancient Anatolian civilizations, the Ottoman past and the history of the Turkish Republic meet. The best things to do in Ankara range from exploring Ankara Castle and Roman ruins to visiting museums, memorials and striking modern landmarks. Neywo offers a free audio guide for Ankara with 209 narrated places.

What to See in Ankara

Ankara Castle

Ankara Castle crowns a hill in the Altındağ district and is one of the city’s defining landmarks. Its earliest walls date to the eighth century BCE, when the Phrygians built the first fortifications. Galatians, Romans, Byzantines, Seljuks and Ottomans later repaired and expanded the site.

The castle is larger inside than it first appears. Narrow lanes and old houses fill the space within the walls, while the ramparts provide views across Ankara. Exploring the fortress also leads into the city’s oldest historic neighbourhoods.

Museum of Anatolian Civilizations

Set against the southern side of Ankara Castle in the Atpazarı district, the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations occupies two restored Ottoman buildings: the Kurşunlu Han and the Mahmut Paşa Bedesteni. These former merchant and caravan buildings now contain an archaeological collection covering the major civilizations of Anatolia.

The displays are arranged chronologically, beginning with the Paleolithic era and Neolithic settlements such as Çatalhöyük and Hacılar. The collection continues through the Early Bronze Age, Assyrian trading colonies, the Hittite Empire, Phrygian and Urartian cultures, and the Greek, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman periods. It is one of the most useful places to visit in Ankara for understanding the region’s long history.

Temple of Augustus in Ankara

Beside Hacı Bayram Mosque stand the remains of the Temple of Augustus and Rome, built around 25–20 BCE after Rome conquered central Anatolia and established the province of Galatia.

The temple is especially important because its walls preserve the Monumentum Ancyranum, the most complete surviving copy of Augustus’s account of his achievements, known as the Res Gestae Divi Augusti. The inscription appears in Latin on the interior walls and Greek on the exterior. The site had previously held a Phrygian temple, which was destroyed in the second century BCE.

Roman remains

Ankara’s ancient history is also visible in several Roman monuments included in the city’s historic centre. The Roman theatre once held thousands of spectators, while the Roman Baths reveal the scale of public life in Roman Ankara. The Column of Julian is another reminder of the city’s imperial past.

Together with the Temple of Augustus, these remains show how ancient sites remain woven into the modern city rather than standing apart from it.

Anıtkabir

Anıtkabir is the monumental mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder and first president of the Turkish Republic. The complex stands on a hill in Ankara’s Çankaya district and combines architecture, sculpture and landscaped spaces to tell the story of modern Turkey.

Atatürk died on November 10, 1938. His body was placed temporarily in the Ethnography Museum of Ankara while the mausoleum was planned. An international competition was held in 1941, and the winning design came from Turkish architects Emin Onat and Orhan Arda. Construction began in 1944 and finished in October 1953. Atatürk’s remains were transferred there on November 10 of that year.

The approach begins along the 262-metre Lions’ Road. The complex is one of the essential places to see in Ankara for understanding the country’s republican history.

Ethnography Museum of Ankara

The Ethnography Museum stands on Namazgâh Hill in the historic Ulus district. Designed by Arif Hikmet Koyunoğlu and built between 1925 and 1928, it reflects the architectural vision of the early Republican period.

The museum focuses on the cultures of Turkic civilizations. It also played a temporary role in the story of modern Turkey: from 1938 to 1953, it housed Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s sarcophagus while Anıtkabir was being built.

Republic Museum

The Republic Museum occupies the building that served as the second home of the Turkish Grand National Assembly. Designed by Vedat Tek, it was completed in 1923, and parliament moved into it in 1924. The assembly remained there for 36 years.

Today, the museum presents the development of the republican era through portraits of presidents and prime ministers, banknotes and coins, photographs, models and illustrated displays. It offers a direct connection between Ankara’s buildings and the institutions formed in the early years of modern Turkey.

War of Independence Museum

The War of Independence Museum is housed in the first Turkish Grand National Assembly building beside Ulus Square. Built from local andesite stone, the single-storey structure was completed during the years before the Turkish Republic.

On April 23, 1920, the new assembly opened here. The building served as the seat of Turkey’s first parliament until 1924, before becoming a museum in 1961. Its setting and collections make it one of the most significant stops for anyone interested in Ankara’s role during the War of Independence.

Ankara Painting and Sculpture Museum

On Namazgâh Hill, the Ankara Painting and Sculpture Museum occupies a building designed by Arif Hikmet Koyunoğlu and constructed between 1927 and 1930. It was created for the Turkish Hearths Central Building under Atatürk’s direction and reopened as a museum in 1980 after restoration.

The collection follows Turkish painting and sculpture from the late nineteenth century to the present. Works by Osman Hamdi Bey, Şeker Ahmet Paşa, İbrahim Çallı, Abdülmecid Efendi, Fikret Mualla, Şevket Dağ, Şefik Bursalı and Abidin Dino trace the development of modern Turkish art. The building also contains the historic Türkocağı Stage, which has hosted performances since 1967.

Kocatepe Mosque

Kocatepe Mosque dominates the skyline in the Kocatepe quarter of Kızılay. It is Ankara’s largest mosque and was completed over two decades, from 1967 to 1987.

Its neo-classical Ottoman design draws on the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne and the Şehzade and Sultan Ahmet mosques in Istanbul. The result is a monumental modern building with clear references to the Ottoman architectural tradition.

Gordion

About 80 kilometres southwest of modern Ankara, Gordion was the ancient capital of Phrygia. The site lies at Yassıhüyük, where the Sakarya and Porsuk rivers meet, near an important route between Lydia and Assyria.

People lived on the mound continuously from the Early Bronze Age, around 2300 BCE, through the fourth century CE. The Citadel Mound covers about 13.5 hectares, while the settlement at its height extended across nearly 100 hectares. The surrounding tumuli, or burial mounds, add another important dimension to the archaeological landscape.

More museums and historic sites

Ankara’s attractions extend beyond the central historic districts. The Stamp Museum, opened in 2013, is Turkey’s first and only museum dedicated entirely to stamps and postal history, with roughly 6,000 stamps from Turkey and other countries.

The METU Science and Technology Museum explores technology in Anatolia from 7000 BCE to the jet age. Its complex includes the Great Silo, a transportation-history hangar and the UFO Applied Science Center, with more than 50 interactive experiments.

In Keçiören, Estergon Castle is a full-scale replica of the castle in Hungary and houses a traditional bazaar, restaurants, an ethnography museum and the Asian Gardens. Kalecik Kalesi is another historic fortress, located in Ankara’s Kalecik District.

The Alagöz Karargâh Museum occupies the farmhouse that served as the headquarters of the Western Front Command during the Battle of Sakarya in 1921. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk worked, slept and took meals there, and the restored building preserves its wartime room layout.

Explore Ankara with Neywo

Neywo makes an Ankara self-guided walking tour simple: the app tells the story of each place as you reach it, at your own pace, with no group and no schedule. Narration is available in 11 languages.

The Ankara audio guide includes six walking tours and one bus route:

• Ancient Ankara: Citadel, Theatre and Temple of Augustus — 3.38 km, 118 minutes and 12 narrated stops.
• Birth of the Republic: Ulus on Foot — 2.02 km, 104 minutes and 12 narrated stops.
• Capital Icons: From the Hittite Sun to Kocatepe — 2.87 km, 88 minutes and 8 narrated stops.
• Atatürk’s Ankara: Railway Station to Anıtkabir — 4.33 km, 105 minutes and 8 narrated stops.
• Hamamönü and Hacettepe: Old Ankara Neighbourhoods — 3.12 km, 85 minutes and 8 narrated stops.
• Çankaya Hill: Cartoons, Villas and Atakule — 3.61 km, 76 minutes and 5 narrated stops.
• Bus 259: Ulus to Kızılay, Along Atatürk Boulevard — 3.3 km, 14 minutes and 7 narrated stops.

Download Neywo and explore Ankara while its history unfolds around you. You can also continue travelling through Turkey, from Cappadocia to Antalya and İstanbul.