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When the first Turkish nomads arrived in Anatolia during the tenth and eleventh centuries, the landscape must have been strongly reminiscent of their Central Asian homeland. The terrain that so pleased the tent-dwelling herdsmen of a thousand years ago, however, has few attractions for modern visitors: monotonous, rolling vistas of stone-strewn grassland, dotted with rocky outcrops, hospitable only to sheep. In winter it can be numbingly cold, while in summer, temperatures can rise to unbearable levels. It seems appropriate that the heart of original Turkish settlement should be home to the political and social centre of modern Turkey - Ankara , a modern European-style capital, symbol of Ataturk's dream of a secular Turkish republic. The south-central part of the country draws more visitors, not least for Cappadocia in the far east of the region, where water and wind have created a land of fantastic forms from the soft tufa rock, including forests of cones, table mountains and canyon-like valleys, all further hewn by civilizations that have found the area sympathetic to their needs. Further south still, Konya is best known as the birthplace of the mystical Sufi Muslim sect and is a good place to stop over between Cappadocia and the coast.
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