Two continents, four hours and one high-speed train

This is the first time I’ve been welcomed to a continent. Before this, it’s been all countries, tidy towns and sunshine states. The sign by the suspension bridge connecting Europe to Asia offers us this greeting. Our taxi driver is utterly indifferent to crossing between worlds, turning off the freeway and dropping us at the entrance of Sogutlucesme station, a name I had given up trying to pronounce.

The stream of people here represents Istanbul: the sleek and cosmopolitan rub shoulders with the devout and pious. Past the metro’s ticket gates, a line waits against a wall to be let onto the platform. The guard is flustered as he fulfils multiple responsibilities: ticket inspector, crowd controller and whatever the person who feeds luggage into the x-ray machine is called. Past him the escalator cycles up onto the platform into the bright afternoon sun, an automatic stairway to heaven.

High-speed adventure… Sogutlucesme station, Istanbul.Credit: Alamy

The Turkish republic is culturally a Middle-Eastern country with only its big toe hooked into Europe, yet it still has moments when it pursues a European ideal. A bid to join the EU was one such time; another the establishment of the Turkish State Railways in 1927. Rail was considered so important to the republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, that he took residence in the station complex of the Berlin to Baghdad Railway on his first visit to Ankara in 1919. The 561-kilometre Ankara Express leaving from the platform above runs 15 times a day, connecting Istanbul, its largest city, to its capital, Ankara, taking just over four hours and reaching a speed of 250 km/h. The Middle East’s first high-speed rail line when it opened in 1975, it is a continuation of the vision to bring European travel to Turkey.

On the platform the train glides in, sleek as anything in Germany or France. The doors hiss and open. Inside is cool, and the seats soon fill with children and parents, young couples and a few elderly passengers straining to hoist luggage onto overhead racks. I’ve paid for business class and everyone in the carriage is well-dressed. The leather seats, coffee cart and free meal later will in many ways surpass European standards that have begun to decline post-pandemic.

Yet as we pull out of the station and into the suburbs, there is no mistaking we are in Europe. We slip past modern tower blocks joined by fibrous muscles of knotted wires that could be any rear-side of any Eastern European burg. But the craning minarets place us firmly in the Middle East.

Capital bound… Ankara Kalesi Castle, Ankara.Credit: Alamy

Onward, buildings shrink to impound lots and salvage yards as we begin to skirt the Sea of Marmara glistening and tranquil, crossed by cargo ships and luxury yachts. Soon we are passing seaside towns and a camping spot where families play in the water or bask on a rocky beach.

I am sitting between two mother-daughter pairs. The girl in front, maybe eight years old, receives calls on a mobile, which she acquits with the efficiency of a CEO. The girl behind is unable to settle. Over the loudspeaker is a message to adjust our music for the comfort of other passengers, a hallmark of modern European travel.

I get up and stroll down the aisle to the economy carriage. While a little more crowded, and upholstered in fabric not leather, the seats are still comfortable and certainly not out of place in Western Europe.

We pass İzmit and leave the Marmaran coast, heading into the country’s interior, passing 200 kilometres an hour as outside a landscape becomes villas, orchards and olive groves. I settle in as the precocious CEO in front watches MTV video clips.

Sunset passage… whizzing through the countryside near Eskisehir.Credit: Alamy

After Eskisehir, the landscape dries to an arid plane, as the temperature climbs to 39 degrees broiling the apartment blocks on a barren field. In the shimmering heat outside I glimpse a lady in a headscarf pushing a stroller over dust and rocks, another world and maybe another century from cosmopolitan Istanbul. Despite the cool sleek carriage, the mood becomes torpid, and some passengers begin to doze.

The best thing about high-speed trains is that they’re fast, and before the lethargy penetrates our bones, the blocks of Turkey’s capital start outside. Passengers blink awake, some stand, stretch and begin retrieving their luggage from overhead. Soon we pull into Ankara’s gleaming station, returning to a place as modern as what we had left, as if the ancient intervening world had been an extravagant amusement part ride. The doors hiss and the passengers pile out onto the platform, melt into the station’s hubbub. We get our bags and do the same.

THE DETAILS

TRAIN
The high-speed train from Istanbul to Ankara runs 15 times a day. I booked through Amber Travel and was warned that tickets sell out a few days before, so book in advance. Economy tickets €20 ($33); business €30 ($50). Tickets can also be bought at Turkish stations and online via the TCDD - Turkey’s State Railways.

The writer travelled at his own expense.