Festivals and events :

The dates for Muslim religious festivals are celebrated according to a lunar calendar; the dates are locked in every few years by Muslim authorities. Only two religious holidays are public holidays: Seker Bayrami, a 3-day festival at the end of Ramazan (30 days in December-January when a good Muslim lets nothing pass the lips during daylight hours), and Kurban Bayrami (March-April) which commemorates Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac on Mt Moriah. In commemoration of God permitting Abraham to sacrifice a ram instead of his son, every Turkish household who can afford a sheep buys one, takes it home and slits its throat right after the early morning prayers on the actual day of Bayram. Family and friends immediately cook up a feast. You must plan for Kurban Bayrami: most banks close for a full week, transportation will be packed and hotel rooms will be scarce and expensive.

Secular festivities include camel-wrestling in mid-January, in the village of Selcuk, south of Izmir; National Sovereignty Day, April 23, a big holiday to celebrate the first meeting of the republican parliament in 1920. Celebrations abound in summer: there's a sloppy oiled wrestling festival in early June at Sarayici, near Edirne; the country Kafkasor Festival near Artvin in north-eastern Turkey in the 3rd week of June; the International Istanbul Festival of the Arts (late June to mid-July); Bursa's Folklore and Music Festival in mid-July and Diyarbakir's Watermelon Festival in mid or late September. The whole country stops, just for a moment, at 9.05 am November 10, the time of Ataturk's death in 1938.

The word Istanbul literally means 'the city to go to' and this is most definitely the case during the summer when the International Istanbul Festival, from April 15 to October 31, bring the city alive. No culture-vulture on the planet could fail to find numerous performances they'd like to catch given that the festival.