The Grand Tour of Anatolia
There are no internal flights on this journey. The same vehicle, the same driver, the same guide and the same Travione representative stay with the group from the airport on the first day to the airport on the last, and the luggage stays in the hold between hotels — nobody repacks for a flight halfway through. Sixteen days is what it takes to drive the shape of Anatolia and still stop properly: three nights in Istanbul before the road begins, two in Cappadocia because the weather does not always co-operate on the first morning, and long lunches on the days that are long.
Met at the airport and transferred to the hotel. The evening is yours to recover from the flight. Welcome dinner with the group.
Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the Hippodrome, all within a few hundred metres of one another, and the Basilica Cistern beneath them — the forest of columns Justinian sank under the city to hold its water. Topkapı Palace in the afternoon: the treasury, the relics, and the terrace over the Golden Horn.
Süleymaniye, Sinan's own favourite among his mosques. The Chora and its fourteenth-century mosaics — the finest Byzantine painting left anywhere. Down into Fener and Balat: the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the iron church of St Stephen, streets of wooden houses in every colour. Eyüp, and the hill above it for the view Pierre Loti came for.
Out of the city and down the Marmara coast to the Dardanelles, with lunch on the way. The Gallipoli peninsula and the narrows that decided more than one war, then the ferry across to Çanakkale.
Troy in the morning — nine cities stacked on one hill, and the one Homer wrote about somewhere in the middle. South to Pergamum: the acropolis on its hilltop, and the Asklepion below it, where the sick were treated with water, theatre and sleep.
A full morning at Ephesus — the Library of Celsus, the marble street, the theatre that seated twenty-five thousand. The Basilica of St John, and the House of the Virgin Mary on the hill above. In the afternoon, inland to Pamukkale.
Hierapolis above the white travertine terraces, with its theatre and the martyrium of Philip. Laodicea, one of the seven cities of Revelation, ten minutes from our own office. Evening: a dinner of this region, which is not the food most people expect from Türkiye.
Sagalassos on the way — a Roman city at fifteen hundred metres, with its fountain restored and running, and almost nobody there. Down through the Taurus range to Antalya.
Perge and its colonnaded street, then Aspendos, whose theatre is the best preserved of the Roman world and still in use. The Antalya Museum, and the old harbour quarter of Kaleiçi in the late afternoon.
The long day, broken properly. Over the Taurus to Lake Beyşehir for lunch on the shore — and beside it the Eşrefoğlu Mosque, a Seljuk hall of wooden columns that feels like standing in a forest. On across the plain to the Sultanhanı caravanserai, then into Cappadocia at dusk.
Göreme and its rock-cut churches, Devrent, Paşabağ, and the potters of Avanos on the Red River.
An underground city — eight levels of it, dug for people who needed to disappear. The Ihlara valley, Uçhisar and Ortahisar. A second full day here is deliberate: Cappadocia rewards the time, and the weather does not always co-operate on the first morning.
Anıtkabir, and the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations — Hittite, Phrygian, Urartian, the deep past of this peninsula laid out in one building. It is the museum that explains everything seen in the previous twelve days.
West through the hills, with lunch on the shore of Lake Sapanca. Into Istanbul in the afternoon, and the rest of the day is yours.
No coach, no schedule. The Grand Bazaar and the Spice Bazaar, or the modern shopping districts, or nothing at all. Farewell dinner in the evening.
Transfer to the airport, at whatever hour the flight requires.
All sixteen days in order, with the overnights and the distances, and everything the price covers — ready to read or to share with the people travelling with you.
Please note: the day-by-day programme is indicative and may change. Site opening days, weather, traffic and local conditions can move the order of visits, and hotels are confirmed at the time of booking. Nothing listed is dropped — it is the sequence that moves. The file on this page is always the current version.
Every entrance on this programme is paid. Each traveller is given a Museum Pass Türkiye, valid fifteen days, and we buy the few entrances the pass does not cover. You will not be asked for money at any gate on this trip.
Everything in the first column is on this programme and paid for. Everything in the second is also open to you on the same pass, at no extra cost, if you have a free morning or want to go back to something on your own. The pass is valid nationwide at more than three hundred and fifty state museums and archaeological sites; the table shows only the cities on this route.
| City | On the programme | Also included on your pass |
|---|---|---|
| Istanbul | Topkapı Palace and the Harem | Istanbul Archaeological Museums · Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts · the Great Palace Mosaic Museum · Hagia Irene · Galata Tower · Rumeli Hisarı · Fethiye Museum |
| Çanakkale | Troy and the Troy Museum | Çanakkale Archaeological Museum · Assos · Apollon Smintheion |
| İzmir | Ephesus · the Terrace Houses · the Basilica of St John · Pergamum Acropolis and Asklepion | Ephesus Museum, Selçuk · Pergamum Museum · İzmir Agora · İzmir Archaeological Museum · Sardis · Metropolis · Teos · Klaros |
| Denizli | Hierapolis and the travertines · Laodicea | Hierapolis Archaeology Museum · Aphrodisias · Denizli Museum · Tripolis |
| Burdur | Sagalassos | Burdur Museum · Kibyra · Kremna |
| Antalya | Perge · Aspendos · the Antalya Museum | Side and the Side Museum · Termessos · Phaselis · Olympos · Patara · Xanthos · Myra and the Church of St Nicholas · Karain Cave |
| Konya · Aksaray | Sultanhanı Caravanserai | Aksaray Museum · Ihlara Valley · Konya Karatay and İnce Minareli Medrese |
| Cappadocia | Göreme Open Air Museum · an underground city | The Dark Church · Zelve and Paşabağ · the second underground city (Kaymaklı or Derinkuyu) · Özkonak · Nevşehir Museum · Hacıbektaş Museum |
| Ankara | Museum of Anatolian Civilizations | Gordion and the Gordion Museum · the Roman Baths · the Temple of Augustus · Ankara Ethnography Museum |
Not on the pass, and why we say so. Four places people ask about are not state museums: the Chora, the Basilica Cistern, the House of the Virgin Mary and the Hagia Sophia visitor gallery. We pay the first three for you. Only the Hagia Sophia gallery stays on the optional list, because we would rather name a charge than bury it in the tour price. Anıtkabir is free to everyone.
A sixteen-day overland journey has two honest windows in this country — spring and autumn. Rather than spread departures evenly through a calendar and put half of them where the trip does not work, we run two in each window, and add one in November, when the plateau is quiet and the price is the lowest of the year.
Child rates are worked out from the adult rate on the same departure.
| Age | Rate | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| 0 – 2 · infants | Free | No separate bed, no entrance fees, no seat taken in the vehicle. |
| 3 – 8 | 50% of the adult rate | Museum entrances free; extra bed in the parents' room. |
| 9 – 11 | 75% of the adult rate | Entrances paid; extra bed in the parents' room. |
| 12 and over | Full rate | Counted and priced as an adult. |
Ages are counted on the first day of the tour. A child in a room of their own is priced as an adult, single supplement included. Tell us the children's ages when you register and we will put the exact figure in your confirmation.
Free · no payment · no obligation. We will come back to you personally with the departure dates and the rate as soon as they are confirmed.
Your registration reference:
Our team will contact you personally with the departure dates and the rate as soon as they are confirmed. Registration is free and carries no obligation.
