12-Day Turkey Tour Package from Istanbul with 3 Domestic Flights

Welcome to Istanbul. Our local team waits for you just outside the arrivals gate at the airport and drives you to your hotel. Check in, unpack and spend your first evening in the city at your own pace.

Airport transfer included. Night in Istanbul.

Meals: breakfast and lunch. Transfers included.

08:30 – Your guide collects you from the hotel and you head for the historical peninsula.

• Hagia Sophia – finished in 537 AD as the cathedral of Constantinople, its dome remained the largest in the world for almost a thousand years. It has served as a Byzantine cathedral and an Ottoman mosque and is an active mosque again today, a layered history no other building in the city can match.
• Blue Mosque – the Sultan Ahmed Mosque is the only imperial Ottoman mosque in Istanbul with six minarets. Inside, around 20,000 hand-painted Iznik tiles take on a blue glow in the daylight, a clear statement of Ottoman architectural ambition at its height.
• Hippodrome – up to 100,000 people once gathered here for chariot races, and it was the political and sporting heart of Byzantium. Three monuments still stand on its central line: the Egyptian Obelisk of Thutmose III, the Serpent Column brought from Delphi and the Column of Constantine.
• Grand Bazaar – trading without a break since 1461, this covered market has more than 4,000 shops along 60 linked streets and is one of the largest and oldest in the world. Its vaulted lanes and busy trade belong to the city's story as much as the monuments next door.
• Bosphorus Cruise – the boat follows about 15 km of European and Asian shoreline, passing Ottoman yalis, the Rumelian and Anatolian fortresses and neoclassical palaces, and runs through the narrow middle of the strait where the two continents come closest.

17:30 – The tour and cruise finish, and you are driven back to your hotel. Night in Istanbul.

Meals: breakfast.

The whole day is yours to explore Istanbul at your own speed before the Aegean part of the trip begins. Night in Istanbul.

Meals: breakfast and lunch. Transfers included.

• 04:00 am – Early pickup at your hotel.
• 07:00 am – Flight from Istanbul to Izmir (the flight time can change).
• 08:20 am – Landing at Izmir airport (the arrival airport and time depend on availability), followed by the drive to Ephesus.

• Ephesus Ancient City – built when the Roman Empire was at its peak, Ephesus was the capital of Roman Asia and one of the biggest cities of the ancient world. You walk a well-preserved grid of streets, baths, temples and civic buildings, and your guide adds the background that brings the ruins to life.
• House of Virgin Mary – on warm mornings the courtyard fills with people lighting candles, reading from small prayer books or resting quietly under the trees. The mood stays calm and respectful, more so than at many larger pilgrimage sites, and your guide gives you space to take it in on your own.
• Temple of Artemis – ancient writers placed this temple above every other wonder for its size and fine carving, with column drums showing mythological scenes. Little of that carving survives at the site near Selcuk, but fragments found during excavation are on display in the Ephesus Museum in Selcuk town, where you can see how those columns once looked.

16:30 – The Ephesus tour ends and you transfer to your hotel in Kusadasi/Selcuk for the night.

Meals: breakfast and lunch. Transfers included.

08:00 – Pickup at your hotel and drive to Pamukkale.

• Pamukkale – thousands of years of thermal activity have turned this whole hillside white. Mineral springs carry dissolved calcium carbonate, which settles layer by layer into smooth travertine terraces, and UNESCO lists the site for its mix of natural beauty and ancient history.
• White Calcium Terraces – thermal water has been spilling over this slope since before the Romans built their city on top. Each time it flows and cools, it leaves a very thin coat of white travertine, and two thousand years of this have shaped the stepped terraces that rank among Turkey's best-known natural landmarks.
• Hierapolis Ancient City – in the 2nd century AD, under Roman rule, this was a city of marble baths, paved roads and orderly public spaces. Its theatre was rebuilt and enlarged under Emperor Hadrian, and carved panels with mythological scenes still decorate the facade. Many visitors expect small ruins and are surprised by how much Roman building survives on the hilltop.
• Cleopatra Antique Thermal Pool – fed by Pamukkale's ancient springs, the water stays at a pleasant 36 degrees all year. Under the surface lie original Roman marble columns that fell in during an earthquake, and you can see and touch them. Swimming is optional and not part of the tour price: if you want to swim, you pay separately at the pool entrance.

• 16:00 – The Pamukkale tour ends.
• 17:00 – Evening bus to Antalya (the departure time can change).
• 20:00 – On arrival, transfer to your hotel in Antalya.

Night in Antalya.

Meals: breakfast. Transfers included.

After the transfers along the west coast, a free day by the Mediterranean gives you the chance to slow down. Night in Antalya.

Meals: breakfast. Free time.

One more free day is planned in, so the trip stays comfortable for travellers who do not want to be guided from place to place every day.

Ideas for your free time: the Kaleici old town and its harbour, Konyaalti or Lara beach, or the Duden waterfalls.

Night in Antalya.

Meals: breakfast and lunch. Transfers included.

08:00 – Pickup at your Antalya hotel for a full day of classical sites and a waterfall.

• Perge – one of the wealthiest cities of ancient Pamphylia, with a colonnaded main street, a bath-gymnasium complex and a stadium for 12,000 spectators. The mountain gate, the Hellenistic towers and the Roman agora can all be reached on foot, which gives Perge a complete, easy-to-explore feel that some better-known ruins nearby lack.
• Aspendos Theatre – the best-preserved Roman theatre in the world, still used for opera and ballet during the Aspendos International Opera and Ballet Festival. It was built under Marcus Aurelius in the 2nd century AD; the stage building rises almost to its original height, with a decorated scaenae frons, and the seats hold around 15,000.
• Side Ancient City – a living Mediterranean resort set among large Roman ruins: a 2nd-century Temple of Apollo on a promontory by the sea, a theatre that once also served as an arena, and a colonnaded main street you can still follow through the modern village. Ancient columns next to beach restaurants make Side one of the most atmospheric stops on Turkey's south coast.
• Duden Waterfall – the Lower Duden Waterfall drops from a cliff straight into the Mediterranean just outside Antalya, one of the few places in Turkey where fresh water falls into the open sea. Boats pass beneath the falling water, and the cliff path above looks out over the turquoise bay.

17:30 – The tour ends and you return to your hotel in Antalya. Night in Antalya.

Meals: breakfast. Transfers included. Free time.

After breakfast you check out of the hotel and fly from Antalya to Cappadocia. Once you arrive, the rest of the day is free.

Depending on the travel date and seat availability, the flight is either direct or connects through Istanbul. Airport transfers in Antalya and in Cappadocia are both included.

Ideas for your free time: a sunset viewpoint above Goreme, Uchisar castle, or a Turkish night show (optional).

Night in Cappadocia.

Meals: breakfast and lunch. Transfers included.

Optional early-morning extras: a hot air balloon flight with sunrise views, rated the #1 experience in Cappadocia and our most booked activity, or a balloon watching tour that takes you to top sunrise photo viewpoints (best viewpoints guaranteed). Either one can be added at the best available price when you book.

09:30 – Pickup at your hotel.

• Devrent Valley (Pink Valley) – part of Goreme National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and valued for its geology as well as for the cultural heritage of the region. Few visitors realise that these rock formations matter as much to science as they do to the eye.
• Pasabag Open Air Museum – its tallest formation is linked to St. Simeon, a sixth-century ascetic monk who wanted to withdraw from society completely. Choosing the most extreme rock in Cappadocia as his home fitted the monastic thinking of his time.
• Avanos Pottery Workshop – no other Cappadocian town has so many working pottery workshops. A living river source, four thousand years of craft and daily production that still goes on set Avanos apart from pottery demonstrations elsewhere in Turkey.
• Goreme Panoramic View – pictures taken here appear in travel magazines all the time, yet they rarely show the depth of the valley or how the formations stack up behind one another. Seeing it in person adds the third dimension that even a wide-angle lens misses.
• Zelve Open Air Museum – Zelve spreads over three valleys with different characters: one is mostly cave homes, one a dense monastic settlement, and the third more open, with wider paths and bigger cave entrances. Walking from one to the next changes the mood of the visit noticeably.
• Uchisar Castle (exterior view) – together with the Goreme valley, the castle explains how people settled here: Uchisar held the high defensive point, while Goreme housed the dense cave-church community below. From the viewing terrace you see both at once, two ways of living in the same volcanic landscape.

17:00 – The tour ends and you are driven to your hotel. Night in Cappadocia.

Meals: breakfast and lunch. Transfers included.

09:30 – Pickup at your hotel.

• Red Valley – cave openings appear here and there along the cliff walls, some barely big enough to step into, others leading to larger carved rooms. Early inhabitants probably used them for storage or shelter, making use of every reachable space in the soft rock.
• Rose Valley (Gulludere Valley) – the valley lies inside the Goreme National Park and Open Air Museum UNESCO World Heritage Site, listed for both its nature and its culture. Conservation work in Gulludere focuses on stabilising the rock church interiors to slow the decay of frescoes exposed to light and humidity.
• Cavusin Village – its cliff communities kept close cultural links with the major Byzantine centres, and the church frescoes follow decorative styles also found in Constantinople and across the Byzantine world. In certain periods, Cappadocia's distance from political turmoil allowed local art to grow with rare continuity.
• Pigeon Valley – from the upper rim you get some of the clearest open views in Cappadocia, with the land falling away steeply on both sides of a narrow ridge. You can see how Uchisar's rock castle, the Goreme valley and the wider plateau around them fit together.
• Underground City – the upper levels held stables, and the carved tethering rings and drainage channels in the floor are still visible. Keeping animals below ground had two benefits: their body heat warmed the upper rooms, and enemies could not take them as food.

• 17:00 – The Cappadocia tour ends, followed by a transfer to Cappadocia airport.
• 21:30 – Evening flight to Istanbul (the flight time can change).
• 23:00 – Landing in Istanbul (the arrival airport and time depend on availability), then a transfer to your hotel.

Night in Istanbul.

Meals: breakfast. Transfers included.

Your package ends today with a transfer from the hotel to the airport, timed for your international flight home.