I had somehow always bypassed a couple of cities in the heartland. One of then is Bingöl, and the first time I came across the name was in an newspaper article: there had been a bloodbath on one of the roads in the area. Not an accident, as so often in Turkey, but terrorism. Unfortunately I read such a message several times more. As a result I did not rush to get there. But when I did - September 2006 - I found the people to be kind and friendly, and the city a cut above what I had expected. I did not find some of my favourites: old mosques, age-old houses. A couple of earth quakes took care of that. So: over-all a modern city. Note that in some shots it looks as if the city has no pavement: that is not the case, they were asphalting much of the centre while I was there.