Things to Do in Ankara in December
December weather, activities, events & insider tips
Low Season · Budget Friendly
December Weather in Ankara
Temperature, rainfall and humidity at a glance
44°F (6°C)
High Temp
31°F (0°C)
Low Temp
1.7 inches (43 mm)
Rainfall
70%
Humidity
⚠ Ankara's plateau elevation of 850 m (2,790 ft) produces wind chill that pushes perceived temperatures significantly below the actual reading. Exposed hilltop sites like the citadel and Hattusa at 1,100 m (3,600 ft) can feel dangerous to underdressed visitors, with wind chill below -10°C (14°F) on bad days.
⚠ Freezing rain and occasional black ice on Ankara's hilly cobblestone streets, in the Ulus and citadel districts, create genuine slip hazards. Proper footwear with grip soles is a safety issue, not a comfort preference.
⚠ Fog on the Ankara-Cappadocia highway through the Anatolian steppe can reduce visibility sharply in early morning December departures. Ensure any tour operator driving this route has winter tires, which are legally required in Turkey from December 1, and a driver experienced with the plateau's winter conditions.
Is December Right for You?
Weigh the advantages and considerations before booking
Advantages
- + Ankara in December is gloriously uncrowded. The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, which draws steady streams of tour groups from April through October, is likely yours to wander alone most mornings. Anıtkabir, Ataturk's mausoleum on Anıttepe hill, takes on a particular solemnity in winter light, fog settling across the ceremonial courtyard at dawn, the honor guard's boots echoing off wet stone. You'll experience the city the way Ankara residents live it, not the version staged for cruise-ship overflow from Istanbul. Worth it.
- + Winter is when Ankara's food culture goes indoors and gets serious. The city's meyhane tradition, those long communal evenings of meze and raki, peaks in the cold months when nobody wants to leave a warm table. Hamamonu's restored Ottoman houses, their stone walls radiating heat from wood-burning stoves, fill with locals eating Ankara tava, a slow-cooked lamb and rice dish baked in clay that exists essentially nowhere else in Turkey. The pickled-vegetable tradition from nearby Cubuk hits its stride in December, jars of sharp, vinegar-bright turnip and cabbage lining the counters of every lokanta in Ulus. Pack an appetite.
- + December pricing across Ankara drops significantly from the already-moderate baseline. Accommodation that books up during political summits and trade fairs sits available at a fraction of its spring rate. Domestic flights from Istanbul, which run steep during summer and holidays, tend to be far more affordable mid-December. The savings are real enough that you can redirect budget toward experiences, a private guide through the Hittite collection or a full-day drive to Cappadocia, without the math hurting. Smart travelers pounce.
- + The Cappadocia day-trip window is excellent in December. The rock formations near Goreme wear a dusting of snow that photographs better than any other season, and the balloon operators still fly on clear mornings. The drive from Ankara, roughly 290 km (180 miles) southeast through the central Anatolian steppe, takes about three and a half hours and passes through landscapes that look almost lunar under winter cloud cover, wheat fields gone dormant, volcanic rock formations catching low-angle light. Tour operators running this route from Ankara have smaller groups in December, which means more flexibility on stops. Book early.
Considerations
- − Cold is the defining reality. Ankara sits on the Anatolian plateau at roughly 850 m (2,790 ft) elevation, and December nights regularly dip below freezing. Wind chill on exposed hilltops like the Ankara Citadel can push the perceived temperature well below 0°C (32°F). If you're coming from a coastal Turkish city or a warm climate, the difference is physical, the kind of cold that stiffens your fingers within minutes of removing gloves. Outdoor sightseeing windows are short, roughly 10 AM to 3 PM before the light goes flat and the chill becomes punishing. Layer up.
- − Daylight is limited and grey. Ankara gets roughly nine hours of daylight in December, with sunrise around 7:20 AM and sunset by 4:40 PM. Overcast skies are the norm, not the exception, and the city's concrete-heavy modern districts, Kizilay, Cankaya, the government quarter, can feel oppressively grey under low cloud. This is not the golden-lit Turkey of tourism posters. You need to actively seek out warmth and color, the amber glow of a tea house in Ulus, the bright tilework inside Kocatepe Mosque, or the neon sprawl of Tunali Hilmi Caddesi at night. Chase light.
- − Some outdoor attractions lose their appeal or close partially. The open-air sections of the Roman Bath ruins near Ulus are uncomfortable to linger in during freezing rain. Genclik Park's lakeside walkways, pleasant in spring, become wind tunnels. Eymir Lake, a popular weekend escape 20 km (12.4 miles) south of the city center, is too cold for anything but a brisk walk, and even that requires proper layering. December Ankara is an indoor city, and travelers who need sunshine and outdoor immersion should come between May and October instead. Skip this.
Best Activities in December
Top things to do during your visit
Ankara in December strips down to essentials: cold, quiet, stone. The Anatolian plateau air bites at 6°C by day and drops to freezing after dark. Frost rims the citadel walls, woodsmoke drifts through Ulus, limestone smells metallic. Parks stand skeletal. Pewter sky shows through. Rain hits every third afternoon, sometimes as sleet that turns cobbles into glass. Yet the month is not monochrome. Clear dawns throw long amber light across domes and minarets. Night falls early, shoving locals into steamy lokanta where windows fog yellow against the dark. This is the season Ankara acts like the working capital it is, not a postcard. Crowds that swamp Istanbul never arrive, so museums sit almost empty and waiters will explain what is in the pot. Winter menus run thick: lemon-laced lentil soup, garlic-yogurt mantı, kebab styles born inland. Hunt these dishes in Kızılay and Tunalı Hilmi, where canteens older than their customers serve central Anatolian food, not coastal fusion. Cold sharpens the archaeology. The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, tucked inside a restored bedesten, owns Hittite and Phrygian pieces that stare down the British Museum's best, and in December you can stand alone before the Çatalhöyük dioramas. Anıtkabir, Atatürk's mausoleum, feels heavier under winter light. The travertine plaza stretches wind-scoured and hushed. Ankara rewards patience; December delivers.
Ankara: Private Walking Tour With A Guide ( Private Tour )
walking_tourAnkara's old quarter only makes sense on foot. This private walking tour threads through layers most visitors miss when they taxi between sights. Your guide climbs the crumbling lanes around Ankara Citadel, past copper workshops that reek of hot metal, past Ottoman houses leaning overhead in ochre and flaking blue. The route drops into Ulus, where the Roman Temple of Augustus still carries its Latin inscription, then into market streets stacked with dried apricots and roasted chickpeas.
A guide is the only way to read the citadel's unmarked Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk, Ottoman sandwich without circling dead-end alleys.
Insider tip: Ask for the back gate near Ak Kale. The climb gives city-wide views and almost no foot traffic.
This month: December keeps the cobbles empty, also icy; wear soles that grip.
Turkish Cuisine Cooking Class at Local Home with Family
foodInside a family apartment the kitchen fills with toasting walnuts and tomato paste. This is home cooking, not show business. You roll mantı dough until light shines through, pinch each parcel, learn the yogurt trick: heat too high and the sauce breaks. The final spread, eaten under family photos and mismatched china, tastes nothing like restaurant food because you watched every step.
Ankara's food lives in private kitchens. This is one of the few legal keys.
Insider tip: Arrive hungry, not starved. Constant tasting adds up to a feast before the feast.
This month: Winter menus run to slow stews, thick soups, pastries built for the plateau cold.
Private Ankara Sightseeing Tour
guided_experienceA car and guide fold Ankara's sprawl into one coherent day, linking Anıtkabir, the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Roman Bath ruins, and the citadel. Between stops the guide explains why Atatürk picked this inland city as capital and how that choice still shapes façades, accents, self-image. You watch the jump-cut: republican boulevards end at Seljuk walls; Soviet slabs loom over Roman capitals.
The sights are far apart and the narrative thread is invisible without wheels and commentary.
Insider tip: Route through Hamamönu below the citadel for restored wooden houses and courtyard tea gardens most tours skip.
This month: Use the short daylight wisely: outdoor sites in the morning, museums after the light fades.
Full Day Cappadocia Private Tour
day_tripCappadocia lies four hours southeast of Ankara. This private day trip swaps the standard multi-day loop for a surgical strike across the steppe. Frost covers the plain until the landscape explodes into Göreme and Ürgüp. Your guide walks the rock-cut churches of the Open Air Museum, frescoes glowing in tuff chambers, then leads you underground into corridors where the air smells of damp stone and centuries.
Rock formations and Byzantine cave art are among the planet's strangest landscapes, accessible in a day from Ankara.
Insider tip: Stop at a roadside lokanta near Kırşehir or Nevşehir for testi kebab, clay-pot stew, instead of the Göreme tourist menus.
This month: Snow on the chimneys is memorable. Balloons are usually grounded by winter wind.
Private Airport Transfer From/To Ankara Airport to Cankaya Hotels
transportEsenboğan Airport is 28 km northeast of town. The road crosses flat steppe before slipping into northern suburbs. Pre-booking a private transfer erases taxi haggling and the night-time bus lottery. The driver meets you in arrivals, handles bags, drives door-to-door, important when midnight temperature hovers near freezing and sleet coats the asphalt.
The distance is just long enough that a guaranteed ride saves the night.
Insider tip: Confirm whether the car can reach your hotel door. Some Çankaya streets are too narrow for turnarounds.
Ankara Bronze Age Private Tour: Hattusas, Yazilikaya & Alacahöyük
private_tourNortheast of Ankara the plateau empties into brown grassland near Çorum. Here sit Hattusha, capital of the Hittites, plus Yazılıkaya and Alacahöyük. At Hattusha the Lion and Sphinx gates rise from wind-combed grass, faces eroded yet defiant after three millennia. At Yazılıkaya you step into a rock cleft lined with bas-relief gods, headdresses and blades still crisp. December wind moans through the cleft. You will probably have it alone.
Hattusha and Yazılıkaya are the eastern Mediterranean's key Bronze Age sites, older than Greek or Roman ruins by a thousand years.
Insider tip: The site is huge and exposed. Layer up, pack a thermos, the café opens when it feels like it.
This month: Hillside wind can knock the temperature well below Ankara's; frozen or muddy ground makes walking treacherous.
Where to Stay in Ankara in December
Hand-picked hotels across price tiers for December travellers.
December Events & Festivals
What's happening during your visit
Late December
New Year's Eve Celebrations at Kizilay Square and Tunali Hilmi Caddesi
Ankara's New Year's Eve is not Istanbul's Bosphorus spectacle, and that is part of the appeal. Celebrations center on Kizilay Square and the pedestrianized stretch of Tunali Hilmi Caddesi in Cankaya, where the city installs light displays and a modest stage. Thousands of locals gather despite the cold, bundled in coats, passing around cups of salep and roasted chestnuts bought from street carts. The countdown happens at midnight with a modest fireworks display, nothing like the pyrotechnic excess of coastal resort towns. But genuine in a way that tourist-targeted celebrations rarely manage. Restaurants along Tunali Hilmi book out their New Year's menus weeks ahead, and the meyhanes in Hamamonu and Samanpazari run special set-menu evenings with live fasil music, the traditional Ottoman ensemble of oud, kanun, and clarinet. The atmosphere is distinctly local because Ankara does not perform for tourists the way Istanbul does. What you get instead is a night out with the city's actual residents, which is its own kind of valuable.
Throughout December
Presidential Symphony Orchestra Winter Concert Season at CSO Concert Hall
The CSO, Turkey's oldest symphony orchestra founded in 1826, runs its winter season through December at the CSO Concert Hall on Ataturk Bulvari. December programs typically feature heavyweight repertoire, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky performed in a hall with surprisingly good acoustics for a mid-century modern building. The audience skews local, government officials, academics, Ankara's cultural establishment, and the atmosphere is formal in a way that feels earned rather than pretentious. This is Turkey's capital city asserting its cultural identity independent of Istanbul, and the orchestra, though less internationally famous than the Istanbul State Symphony, plays with a conviction that makes the evening worthwhile. Tickets tend to be available even close to performance dates in December, though the New Year's concert sells out faster.
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View Ankara Packing List →Essential Tips
Insider knowledge and common pitfalls to avoid
Insider Knowledge
Ankara's best food is not in its restaurants, it is in its lokantas, the cafeteria-style lunch spots where government workers and university students eat daily. The lokantas clustered around Samanpazari and the streets behind Ulus Meydani serve steam-table dishes, Ankara tava, kuru fasulye with rice, spinach borek still flaky from the oven, at prices that make Istanbul look absurd. Point at what looks good, sit down, eat. The protocol is that simple. December lunch rush hits between noon and 1 PM; arrive at 11:30 to beat it.
The Ankara metro and Ankaray light rail are clean, punctual, and nearly empty compared to Istanbul's sardine-can conditions. But the network has gaps, to the citadel area and Hamamonu, where you will need to walk uphill from Ulus station or take a short taxi. In December, the walk from Ulus metro to the citadel gate, roughly 800 m (0.5 miles) and steeply uphill on cobblestones, can feel much longer in cold rain. Budget for occasional taxi rides and agree on the fare before getting in, or insist on the meter.
Turks drink tea constantly, and in December the pace intensifies. Accepting tea in a shop or from a guide is not a commercial obligation, it is a social ritual. The cay bahcesi (tea gardens) inside the citadel walls are open year-round, and sitting in one on a cold December afternoon with a tulip glass of dark cay and a plate of simit, the sesame-crusted bread ring sold from red carts on every major street, is one of Ankara's most pleasant experiences. The tea arrives scalding and unsweetened. Sugar cubes are on the table.
December 31 in Turkey is secular New Year's, celebrated widely even though the country is majority Muslim. However, Ankara is more conservative than Istanbul or Izmir, and some neighborhoods are quieter on New Year's Eve than you might expect. The celebration concentrates in Cankaya, Kizilay, and Tunali Hilmi. Outside those zones, December 31 can feel like an ordinary evening. If you want the festive atmosphere, stay in the Cankaya district and book dinner well ahead.
Avoid These Mistakes
Treating Ankara as a quick stopover between Istanbul and Cappadocia. Travelers who give Ankara a single afternoon between bus connections see the traffic, the government buildings, and the grey December sky, and conclude the city has nothing to offer. Two full days minimum reveals the citadel, the extraordinary Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Hamamonu's evening food culture, and the particular dignity of a national capital that does not perform for tourists. Ankara earns its keep. But you have to give it time.
Packing for mild Turkish weather because Turkey means Mediterranean. Ankara is not Antalya. The city sits on an inland plateau at 850 m (2,790 ft) elevation, and December temperatures regularly hover around or below freezing. Travelers arriving in light jackets from Istanbul, which is 10°C (18°F) warmer on average in December, are visibly miserable by their first evening. Pack as you would for a Central European winter.
Expecting English to work everywhere outside the tourist circuit. Ankara is a government and university city, not a tourism economy. Hotel desks and museum ticket counters generally manage English. But taxi drivers, lokanta staff, and shopkeepers in Ulus and the bazaar areas often speak Turkish only. Having a translation app ready, or even a few phrases of Turkish, the greetings, numbers, and tesekkurler (thank you), transforms interactions from frustrating to warm. Ankara residents are notably hospitable to visitors who make even a minimal effort.
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