Orientation
The "downtown" area of this large city is around Kızılay Square Kızılay Meydanı which has a fair number of transportation links to almost anywhere in the city. To the north, Kızılay Square is connected by a wide avenue to Sıhhiye with a Hittite-style sculpture of a deer and Ulus Squares, which are second most central parts of the city, located near the train station and the old part of the town around the citadel on the hill.
Climate
As any other part of the Anatolian highland, the winters are cold and usually snowy. Temperature is regularly below the freezing point during this season, but it rarely drops below -15° C. Thanks to the low levels of relative humidity, the hot and dry summers are more comfortable than coastal regions of Turkey. Summer nights are cool, though, so be sure to bring at least a cardigan with you to wear outdoors. Spring and autumn are the wettest seasons, but with an annual rainfall amount of 415 mm i.e., a semi-arid climate, you are unlikely to get much wet during your trip to Ankara, anyway.
Understand
The locals are generally helpful to tourists, and many young people can communicate in English. Although most people will try to speak English with you, it's a good idea to bring a Turkish phrasebook or dictionary. Ankara is the administrative center of Turkey and a huge university town such that most of its inhabitants consist of civil servants, students and academics.
Apart from the old town in and around the citadel near Ulus, and unplanned shantytown neighbourhoods here and there built hastily by new immigrants from countryside in the last five decades, most of Ankara, which was a provincial town of 20,000 people in the early days of Republic, is a purpose-built capital due to its strategic location at the heart of the country, although the history of settlement in the vicinity is millenia old.
While the biggest claim to fame of the town used to be the long-haired local breed of goats named after former name of the city Angora, out of which high quality mohair textiles were produced, today the only place where you can spot them in city is the lawns on the side of a clover-leaf interchange on the highway westâin the form of cute sculptures.