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Turkey: Turkey might be the world’s most contested country. Its landscape is dotted with battlegrounds, ruined castles and the palaces of great empires. Then again, if you want to simply unwind, spend an afternoon being pampered at a hamam, or let the warm waters off the Mediterranean coast lap at your toes. Adventure lovers can head east to Nemrut Daği National Park. Bon vivants need look no further than İstanbul, where the markets and bars are among the most stylish and atmospheric, and the mod Ottoman cuisine rates as the tastiest, in the world. Attractive places in Turkey: While the scenery of the Aegean coast is not as spectacular as that of the Mediterranean, this is the part of Turkey that was once Asia Minor and it is studded with fantastic historic sites, including the ruins of Troy, Ephesus and Pergamum. This is also where you come to see the battlefield sites at Gallipoli. Much like Side, its smaller cousin to the west, Alanya has, in the past couple of decades, been discovered – and subsequently conquered – by European package tourism, especially from Germany and Scandinavia. There’s good reason for this, of course: Alanya’s silky sand beach stretches for more than 20km to the east, where a parade of all-inclusive five-star resorts now sit practically side-by-side: Sunbathe during the day, dine in the evening and party well into the night. Should you happen to be interested in exploring the ancient culture of this newly modern town, pay a visit to the fascinating fortress district, which sits high above the harbour. There you’ll find a number of hillside cafés and a wonderful mess of ruins, all well worth investigating. Café culture in particular has transformed the city “Ankara” breathing full-on life into its wide, open streets. As the city expands, everything that’s new and now tends to pop up at random points across the lattice of suburbs, making it tricky for short-term visitors to track down the latest hotspots. If you really want to keep up with the thriving city scene, get used to asking locals for tips and taking taxis to find them. Istanbul is hot. And we’re not talking about the weather. These days, there are more happening restaurants, bars, galleries and clubs around town than there are exquisite Ottoman mosques (and that’s a lot). The international fashion and design press have been talking up İstanbul ad nauseam, but the most significant thing about the accolade ‘World’s Hippest City’ is that İstanbullus themselves have come believe it. The creeping sense of decrepitude that had fallen like a pall over their once-all-powerful home town has vanished, replaced by a sense of energy and innovation not seen since the days of Süleyman the Magnificent. The city’s over-abundance of important historic buildings and exciting new art galleries and museums provides visitors with more than enough to see during the day, but it’s at night that the place swings into high-velocity, mega-stylish action. Locals are flocking to see and be seen at an ever-growing array of bars, clubs and restaurants, bringing with them an infectious sense of joie de vivre and a discerning ability to judge these places on their standard of service, drinks, music and food as well as their position in the what’s-hot-and-what’s-not stakes. That’s not to say that the locals are turning their backs on much-loved city institutions such as the rakı-soaked meyhane (tavern) or tranquil çay bahçesi (tea garden), because they wouldn’t dream of doing anything so foolish. They know, after all, that such institutions are one of the reasons that their home is – and always has been – rightfully dubbed the ‘City of the World’s Desire’. Travel no further: you've found what you're looking for. A place where resorts are nonexistent, where you can really feel a sense of wilderness and adventure, and where superb archaeological sites and hidden treasures are set amidst eerie landscapes - welcome to the Black Sea coast and eastern Turkey. If you're heading overland for Iran or Syria you will certainly need to transit parts of these fascinating areas; bear in mind that the weather can be bitterly cold and snowy in winter, especially in eastern Turkey. Turkey's Black Sea coast is a distinctive part of the country. With plenty of rain, even in summer, it's the garden of Turkey. It is steep and craggy, damp and lush, and isolated behind the Pontic Mountains for most of its length. The coast west from Sinop to the Bosphorus is little visited, although the quaint seaside town of Amasra, with its Roman and Byzantine ruins and small, cheap hotels, is worth a look. Sinop, three hours northwest of Samsun, is a fine little backwater, with beaches on both sides of the peninsula, as well as a few historic buildings and several cheap hotels. While Samsun has little of interest to detain tourists, there are excellent beaches around the cheerful resort town of Ünye, on a wide bay 85km east of Samsun. About 80km further to the east, Ordu is a bustling seaside city with a pleasant seafront boulevard. Giresun is famous for its hazelnuts and cherries. From the Black Sea coast, it's fairly straightforward to get to northeastern Anatolia. This remote section of the country exerts a magnetic power, even for the Turks. Here the flavours of the neighbouring Caucasus, Central Asia and Iran are already palpable. It's a perfect blend of nature and culture, with many palaces, castles, mosques and churches dotted around the steppe.