Gordion

Gordion was the capital of Phrygia, and it carries two of the more durable stories in classical tradition - the Gordian knot that Alexander is said to have cut, and Midas, who was a real Phrygian king as well as a legend. It was inscribed by UNESCO in 2023. The site has three parts: the citadel mound with its excavated gate, megaron buildings and terrace complex; the museum, holding furniture, bronzes and finds from the excavations that Pennsylvania has run here since the 1950s; and the tumuli, of which around a hundred dot the plain. The great one, Tumulus MM, is fifty metres high, and a tunnel driven into it lets you walk to the burial chamber at its heart - a room of juniper and pine logs built around 740 BCE, the oldest standing wooden structure known anywhere, which held a man of about sixty, probably Midas's father or Midas himself, laid out with bronze vessels and inlaid furniture.

What you actually see

• The wooden chamber - the eighth-century BCE tomb inside the tumulus.
• The citadel mound - gate, megarons and terrace buildings.
• The museum - furniture, bronzes and the excavation record.
• The tumuli field - burial mounds across the plain.

When to go

April to June and September to October. Mornings; the plain is exposed, hot in summer and bitterly windy in winter.

Honest expectations

The tumulus tunnel is low, damp and confined - not for the claustrophobic - and photography inside may be restricted. The citadel is foundations rather than architecture. Little shade; a car is the practical access.

Nearby

Polatlı is the nearest town; Ankara and the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations are 90 km east.