14-Day Turkey Tour Package from Istanbul with 2 Domestic Flights

Transfers included.

Once you clear arrival formalities at the airport, our local team is waiting just outside the arrivals gate. They drive you to your hotel so you can check in, unpack and take your first evening in Istanbul slowly.

Overnight in Istanbul.

Meal: breakfast. Free time.

Today has no fixed programme, so you can find your own rhythm before the regional flights start. A few ideas: ride a ferry along the Bosphorus, browse the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Bazaar, or wander the streets of Galata and Karakoy.

Overnight in Istanbul.

Meals: breakfast and lunch. Transfers included.

08:30 – Your guide collects you at the hotel and you drive to the historical peninsula.

• Hagia Sophia: Built in 537 AD as the Byzantine cathedral of Constantinople, it kept the title of the world's largest dome for almost 1,000 years. It served first as a cathedral, then as an Ottoman imperial mosque, and today it is an active mosque again. No other building in Istanbul carries that much history.
• Blue Mosque: The Sultan Ahmed Mosque is the only Ottoman imperial mosque in Istanbul with six minarets. Light from 260 windows falls on 20,000 hand-painted Iznik tiles and gives the interior its blue tone. The huge dome and the balanced courtyard show Ottoman architecture at its confident best.
• Hippodrome: This was once Byzantium's chariot-racing arena, the heart of civic life, with room for 100,000 spectators. Three original monuments survive along its central line: Thutmose III's obelisk from Egypt, now 3,500 years old; the Serpent Column, brought here from Delphi; plus the Column of Constantine Porphyrogennetos.
• Bosphorus Cruise: The boat follows about 15 km of shoreline. Ottoman fortresses, wooden summer mansions, 19th-century palaces and the modern skyline line both the European and the Asian side, and you see both at once. After the busy old city, the time on the water gives the day a looser pace before you head back.

17:30 – The tour finishes and you are driven back to your hotel.

Overnight in Istanbul.

Meals: breakfast and lunch. Transfers included.

04:00 – Early pick-up at your hotel (the pick-up time and the departure airport may change).

07:00 – Flight from Istanbul to Cappadocia (flight time may change).

08:20 – Landing in Cappadocia (the arrival airport and time depend on availability). From there you drive straight to the touring area.

• Devrent Valley (Pink Valley): Come in spring and you get an extra splash of colour: small wildflowers grow on the valley floor between the rock columns and stand out against the pale stone. The season is short, but it changes an already striking view.
• Pasabag Open Air Museum: Near the entrance is a small market where local sellers offer pottery, textiles and dried fruit. A few minutes there after the visit helps local traders and is a good excuse to stay a little longer before you get back in the vehicle.
• Avanos Pottery Workshop: Potters have worked in Avanos for more than four thousand years, using the red clay the Kizilirmak River leaves along its banks. In a working studio you see a craft that has outlived every empire that crossed Cappadocia.
• Goreme Panoramic View: On the Red Tour this stop is short, usually ten to fifteen minutes, yet it produces many of the best photos of the day. Bring a charged phone or camera with plenty of free memory.
• Zelve Open Air Museum: Here your guide usually explains how the cave rooms were divided: storage and animal shelters at the bottom, kitchens and living spaces in the middle, bedrooms and small chapels at the top. Once you know this, the cliff reads like a floor plan rather than a wall of holes.
• Uchisar Castle (exterior view): The rock's surface is slowly wearing away, and the Turkish Ministry of Culture keeps constant watch on its stability. Viewing it from outside is partly a response to that problem: you still see the full shape of the castle without adding footsteps to its fragile interior.

17:00 – End of the tour and transfer to your hotel.

Overnight in Cappadocia.

Meals: breakfast and lunch. Transfers included.

Optional early-morning add-ons: a hot air balloon flight with sunrise views, rated the number one Cappadocia experience and the most booked activity, or a balloon watching tour to the best sunrise photo viewpoints, which are guaranteed. Either one can be added at the best available price when you book.

09:30 – Pick-up at your hotel.

• Red Valley: Several high points on the upper trail give clear views toward Urgup and across the wider Cappadocia basin. On a clear day you can also make out Mount Erciyes on the horizon, the dormant volcano that shaped the geology of the whole region.
• Rose Valley (Gulludere Valley): A few of the rock churches can only be reached by a short climb over loose slopes, so you need to be fairly agile and not mind some dust. The reward is an interior that few visitors see, with painted walls and carved altar areas that are still mostly intact.
• Cavusin Village: Old Cavusin is best seen slowly. Thirty minutes instead of ten lets the details add up to a clear picture of how the community lived. Most guided tours give you enough time to walk up the main path and step into a few cave rooms, which is enough to grasp how much the early residents carved here.
• Pigeon Valley: Many of the carved dovecote openings are painted with red and white geometric patterns and simple plant designs. Farmers used these marks to tell their own pigeon houses apart from hundreds of others on the cliff, and together they form a record of rural folk art.
• Underground City: The city shows clear signs of planning. Each room had a fixed purpose, and movement between levels was arranged so the narrow tunnels would not clog. That layout points to a community that improved its underground system over many generations.

17:00 – The tour ends with a drive back to your hotel.

Overnight in Cappadocia.

Meal: breakfast. Transfers included.

After breakfast you check out of the hotel. Depending on your flight time, we drive you to Kayseri Airport or Nevsehir Airport for the flight to Antalya. The flight may be direct or routed through Istanbul, depending on availability.

In Antalya our team meets you at the airport exit and takes you to your hotel.

Overnight in Antalya.

Meal: breakfast.

Spend the day as you like: on the coast, in the lanes of the Old Town, or simply resting at the hotel.

Overnight in Antalya.

Meal: breakfast.

A second day with nothing scheduled gives the middle of the trip an easier, more comfortable pace.

Overnight in Antalya.

Meal: breakfast. Transfers included.

Today you ride an intercity bus from Antalya to Pamukkale, a journey of about 3 hours, and check in at your hotel when you arrive. The departure time can change with the travel date. Transfers to and from the bus stations are arranged for you.

Overnight in Pamukkale.

Meals: breakfast and lunch. Transfers included.

09:30 – Pick-up at your hotel and short drive to Pamukkale.

• Pamukkale: Many places are famous for how they look in photos. Pamukkale is famous because it looks even better when you stand there. In Denizli province, white travertine ledges step down the slope, formed over thousands of years by warm springs rich in calcium. It holds UNESCO World Heritage status, and nowhere else on earth looks quite like it.
• White Calcium Terraces: Conservation rules now decide exactly where the water runs over the terraces. Years of open access had dulled and damaged parts of the white surface, so engineers now switch the flow by season to let sections recover. As a result, the terraces look much nearer their natural state than they did thirty years ago.
• Hierapolis Ancient City: Few ancient sites in Turkey hold so many well-kept monuments in one place. Founded in the 2nd century BC, this Greco-Roman city has a huge theatre, colonnaded streets, a large bath complex, temples and a remarkable necropolis running north of the walls. It all stands on a plateau above the terraces, with long views over the plains of Denizli.
• Cleopatra Antique Thermal Pool: Inside the Hierapolis ruins, this pool holds 36-degree water around a scatter of Roman columns. An earthquake in the 7th century threw them into the water, and they have lain there ever since. Entry is not part of the tour price; you pay at the pool on the day. Swimming is also not included and is paid on site.

16:00 – The Pamukkale tour ends and you transfer to your hotel in Kusadasi/Selcuk.

Overnight in Kusadasi/Selcuk.

Meals: breakfast and lunch. Transfers included.

08:30 – Pick-up at your hotel and drive to Ephesus Ancient City.

• Ephesus Ancient City: The city lies in a natural valley in western Turkey, and the setting makes every photo more dramatic. Marble columns frame the hills beyond, and the Great Amphitheatre curves into the slope above the streets. Add the detailed carvings of the Temple of Hadrian and the site pleases photographers and history fans alike.
• House of Virgin Mary: Outside the chapel, water from the sacred spring runs from a row of small taps, so visitors can fill a bottle or rinse their hands. Many pilgrims drink it as an act of faith. Even people who have never been on a pilgrimage often join the quiet queue; the setting seems to invite it.
• Temple of Artemis: Six centuries passed between the first temple and its final destruction, longer than many civilisations lasted. In that time it was rebuilt twice after fires and once after a flood, each version bigger or finer than the one before. Near Selcuk today, all that history comes down to one column in a quiet field, where visitors pause to think about how far persistence and ambition once went.

16:30 – The Ephesus tour ends and we drive you to Izmir Bus Station.

18:30 – Your bus leaves Izmir for Canakkale. The trip takes about 5 hours, with one or two breaks.

Around 23:30 – Arrival in Canakkale, where we meet you and take you to your hotel.

Overnight in Canakkale.

Meal: breakfast. Transfers included.

Have breakfast and check out of the hotel.

Around 12:45 – You are picked up at the hotel and the tour begins.

• Troy Ancient City: In Homer's Iliad, Troy is a rich, walled city that Hector and his brothers held through a ten-year Greek siege. Excavations at Hisarlik hill have uncovered walls, palaces, temples and trade goods that fit Homer's account much better than earlier scholars expected. Your guide stands with you at the walls of Troy VI, the layer most likely to be Homer's city, and explains what the evidence really shows.
• Replica of the Trojan Horse: The wooden horse at the entrance puts the legend in front of you before the walk through the excavations. Your guide explains that the horse comes from the epic poems, not from the dig, and why it is still the symbol the world links with Troy.

15:30 / 16:00 – End of the Troy tour.

Around 17:00 – The drive to Istanbul begins. It takes about 5 hours, with one break on the way, and ends at your hotel.

Around 22:00 – Arrival in Istanbul and transfer to your hotel.

Overnight in Istanbul.

Meal: breakfast. Free time.

Your last free day in the city is yours for shopping, exploring neighbourhoods or resting before you fly home.

Overnight in Istanbul.

Meal: breakfast. Transfers included.

Depending on the time of your international flight, we drive you to Istanbul Airport or Sabiha Gokcen Airport.