Turkey is in the Mediterranean, in the Anatolian region of West Asia, with a small section in Southeastern Europe separated by the Turkish Straits (Bosphorus, Sea of Marmara, and Dardanelles). With the Black Sea to the north and the Aegean Sea in the west and Mediterranean Sea to the southwest, Turkey is surrounded by Bulgaria and Greece to the west, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia to the northeast, Syria, Iraq and Iran to the southeast.

While it may sound as a tourism brochure cliché, Turkey is really a curious mix of the west and the east - you may swear you were in a Balkan country or in Greece when in northwestern and western parts of the country, while southeastern reaches have little if any cultural differences from the southern and eastern neighbors. Caucasus influences add to the mix in the northeast part of the country. It can be simply put that Turkey is the most oriental one of western nations.

The climate in Turkey has a vast diversity depending on the diverse topography and latitude.

Aegean and Mediterranean coastal areas enjoy the typical Mediterranean climate. There is hardly a drop of rain during the sunny and hot summer. Winters are mild and rainy in these regions, and it very rarely snows in coastal areas.

The region around the Sea of Marmara, including Istanbul, has a transitional climate between an oceanic climate and a semi-Mediterranean climate, but it does rain, albeit not a lot, during the very warm summer. Its winters are colder than those of the western and southern coasts. Snow is common at coastal areas, although it doesn’t stay on the ground for long and is limited to only a few days every winter.

The Black Sea region has an oceanic climate and is the only region of Turkey that receives high precipitation throughout the year. The eastern part of that coast averages 2,500 mm annually. Summers are warm and humid while the winters are cool and damp.

The southeastern region near the Syrian border has a desert-like climate. Snowfall is occasional in winter.

Interior areas like Ankara, generally have hot summers and cold and snowy winters.

Istanbul is Turkey's largest city, the former capital of both the Ottoman and Byzantine Empires and is the only city in the world to straddle two continents. Ankara is the capital of Turkey and its second largest city whilst Antalya is the fastest growing city in Turkey and is hub to an array of beach resorts. You can visit Bodrum — a trendy coastal town in Southern Aegean which turns into a crowded city in season when it serves as a playground for Turkish and international holidaymakers alike, featuring a citadel, Roman ruins, trendy clubs and a number of villages surrounding the peninsula each with a different character from classy to rustic.

While Turkey is rightly renowned for its warm Mediterranean beaches, wintersports, especially skiing, is very much a possibility—and indeed a popular activity—in the mountainous interior of the country between October and April, with a guaranteed stable snowcover and constant below freezing temparatures between December and March. Some more eastern resorts have longer periods of snowcover.

Most popular wintersports resorts include Uludag near Bursa, Kartepe near Izmit, Kartalkaya near Bolu, and Ilgaz near Kastamonu in the northwest of the country, and Palandöken near Erzurum, and Sarikamis near Kars in the northeast of the country. Saklikent near Antalya is touted to be one of the places where you can ski in the morning and swim in the warm waters of Mediterranean down the coast in Antalya in the afternoon, though snowcover period in Saklikent is desperately short as not to let this happen every year.

Turkish cuisine combines Mediterranean, Central Asian, Caucasian, and Arabic influences, and is extremely rich. Beef is the most important meat (lamb is also common but pork is very hard to find although not illegal), and eggplant (aubergine), onion, lentil, bean, tomato, garlic, and cucumber are the primary vegetables. An abundance of spices is also used. The main staples are rice (pilav), bulgur wheat and bread, and dishes are typically cooked in vegetable oil or sometimes butter.