Notes from the road — faith, heritage and the Türkiye behind the guidebooks.
A companion to our piece on why most people see Denizli for two hours. If you are staying rather than passing through, this is what the nights are for — ancient cities, caves, waterfalls, vineyards, looms, and a rooster that crows for twenty seconds.
Pamukkale received 2,299,914 visitors last year, second only to Ephesus. Nobody publishes how long any of them stayed. I think the reason nobody measures it is that the answer is about two hours.
We added a November departure because the demand was there. Then we found that the demand was two different markets wearing the same clothes, separated by a document nobody prices into a lead time.
We are taking thirty people to Erciyes in December and half of them have never been on skis. The enquiries that produced that number were not asking about price. They were asking for permission.
Nine hours and thirteen minutes of daylight on the shortest day, four to eleven degrees, and a wind that cancels the Bosphorus boats. What winter in Istanbul actually does to a programme — and why we still sell it.
For nineteen centuries Colossae existed as a text and not as a place. In 2025, twenty-five kilometres from our office, someone finally started digging it.
Türkiye's inflation is ten times the euro area's, visitor numbers are down and spending per head is up. The usual explanation is that we got expensive. I think we are measuring the wrong variable.
Our office in Denizli sits ten minutes from Laodicea, twenty from Hierapolis and half an hour from the mound of Colossae; the three cities Paul names together in a single verse.
The crowds go home, the queues vanish, and the palaces are half empty. A short case for seeing the Queen of Cities in the one month nobody recommends.
The coast is six kilometres away now. The Ephesians knew it was coming, fought it for three centuries, and lost — and almost nobody who visits is told.
Travellers plan forwards, from what they want to see. Operators plan backwards, from what is shut. Almost every itinerary anyone has ever enjoyed was shaped by a closure the visitor never heard about.