King Midas is the name everyone remembers, and this mound of earth near the village of Yassıhöyük is where his world really sat. Gordion was the capital of the Phrygians, a people who ruled much of central Anatolia in the centuries after the Hittite collapse, and the ruins lie on the flat floodplain of the Sakarya river, west of Ankara and about fifteen kilometres from Polatlı.
The riding here is honest plateau riding. You leave the capital on fast, wide roads through wheat and barley country, and the landscape flattens into a huge pale bowl with a few poplar lines and the odd grain silo for punctuation. Corners are rare and gentle. What you get instead is space, a big sky and a steady crosswind in the afternoon, so a good mid-morning start in spring or early summer is kinder than a July noon, when the steppe bakes and the tarmac shimmers. In late autumn the fields are bare brown and the light turns long and golden, which suits the place.
The great tumulus is the thing to see first. It rises like a small hill beside the road, and under it lies a wooden tomb chamber of cedar and juniper that is generally described as the oldest standing timber building in the world, dating from around the eighth century BC. You walk in through a tunnel cut into the mound, which is a strange, cool, quiet experience after the glare outside. The museum next door holds the finds, including delicate inlaid wooden furniture and bronze vessels that were buried with the dead for a funeral feast.
Then there is the knot. Gordion is the town where, in 333 BC, Alexander the Great is said to have been shown the tangled cart of King Gordius and to have solved the puzzle with a stroke of his sword, whatever the details of that story really were. It is a good tale to have in your head while you stand on the citadel mound looking at the gate and the old walls.
Practical matters are simple. There is nothing at the site beyond the visitor facilities, so fill the tank in Polatlı, which is a proper town of tens of thousands with fuel stations, bakeries and tea houses on the way. Bring water and a hat, because shade on the mound is scarce, and give yourself an hour or two. Morning is best, before the wind picks up and the tour coaches arrive from Ankara.