Many countries in the region claim to be the meeting point between the east and the west, but surely Turkey, with a city that sits abreast two continents and its large Muslim population can take the claim of being the cultural collision point between the world’s different cultures and civilisations. Simply a list of Turkey’s borders shows the variety of influences which have poured into and out of the country. It has Bulgaria to its northwest; Greece in the west, with Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran to the east; notwithstanding Iraq and Syria to the southeast.

Climate of Turkey

The country has a Mediterranean Temperate climate, which means you will experience hot dry summers. During the winter months you might expect to find weather which is not so cold, but rather wet. Because of the many coastal mountains, the country could not be described as wholly Mediterranean as the interior is more Continental in its weather patterns. In the mountains to the East temperatures can drop to minus forty degrees in the depths of winter with snow lasting nearly a third of the year. Meanwhile for your summer holidays by the coast you might expect to find temperatures well above thirty.

Turkish Culture

It can be said that Turkish culture is a mixture of Oguz Turkic and Anatolian, Ottoman and Western, making a fascinating blend which displays itself throughout society. Maybe a good example of this is the rise in popularity of Arabesque hip hop, though this mixing has been going n ever since people moved from Central Asia to the west or visa-versa. The literature emanating from the country was in the past heavily influenced by the regionally dominant Persian style, but with the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the last century the western influences are also present in a country which is currently producing some of the world’s greatest living novelists.