9-Day Private Turkey Package Tour with Ephesus, Pamukkale & Cappadocia

Transfers included. Free time.

Our representative meets you at Istanbul Airport or Sabiha Gokcen Airport and drives you straight to your hotel. After check-in the day is free, so you can settle into your room and recover from the journey in your own time.

If you feel like going out, ride a ferry on the Bosphorus, visit the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Bazaar, or stroll around Galata and Karakoy.

Overnight in Istanbul.

Meal: breakfast. Transfers included.

10:00 – Your private guide and vehicle pick you up at the hotel, and the whole day follows your pace.

• Blue Mosque: The Sultan Ahmed Mosque is one of the fullest examples of classical Ottoman mosque design, with six minarets, a wide forecourt and more than 20,000 Iznik tiles that give the interior its famous deep blue feel. As the tour is private, your guide can plan the visit to miss the worst of the crowds inside.
• Hippodrome: For over a thousand years this square was the centre of public life in Byzantine Constantinople. Three original monuments still stand along its spine: Thutmose III's obelisk from Egypt, the Serpent Column brought from Apollo's temple at Delphi, and Constantine Porphyrogennetos's column. Your guide can go deeper into whichever period of its long history interests you most.
• Topkapi Palace: For almost four centuries Topkapi was where the Ottoman Empire was run and where the sultans lived. Its four courts hold sacred Islamic relics, jewelled treasures, imperial kitchenware and the sultans' private rooms. On a private tour, your guide focuses on the parts that matter most to your group.
• Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum: One of the most important collections of Islamic art outside the Arab world fills this building, from Ottoman calligraphy and Seljuk carpets to Anatolian prayer rugs and objects that link the region's religious and artistic history under one roof.

18:00 – Transfer back to your hotel at a time that fits your plans.

Overnight in Istanbul.

Meal: breakfast. Transfers included. Free time.

The morning is free for exploring Istanbul on your own. Ideas: Istiklal Avenue and Taksim, a Turkish bath (hamam), or the sunset from Galata Tower.

In the afternoon you board your private Bosphorus cruise and sail the strait between Europe and Asia, passing the Dolmabahce, Ciragan and Beylerbeyi palaces, the Rumeli Hisari Fortress and the Bosphorus Bridge. The cruise can be set for any time of day, so please tell us the time you prefer. Afterwards you are driven back to your hotel.

Overnight in Istanbul.

Meal: breakfast. Transfers included.

04:00 – Early transfer to Istanbul Airport for your flight to Izmir (the pick-up time and airport may change).

07:20 – Flight from Istanbul to Izmir (flight time may change).

08:30 – Landing at Izmir Airport (arrival airport and time depend on availability). Your private guide and vehicle are waiting, and the Ephesus day starts.

• Ephesus Ancient City: Few ancient cities keep their street plan as fully as Ephesus. You can follow whole blocks, pick out the residential quarters and see the logic of a city laid out two thousand years ago. The marble main road still carries grooves cut by cart wheels in its busiest centuries, the kind of detail that makes history feel real.
• House of Virgin Mary: Of all the stops on an Ephesus day, this is where people most often fall silent. Visitors who walk up talking tend to go quiet soon after stepping into the chapel. Whether it is faith, respect or plain awe at a very old place, the reaction is real, and guides have seen it again and again for years.
• Temple of Artemis: At the edge of Selcuk, one column rising from a flat, marshy field is all that is left of the temple, yet it carries a long story. Built and rebuilt several times over the centuries, the temple was finally destroyed, and its stones were taken away for Byzantine churches and for Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. The column you see is a reconstruction, but the ground under it is original.

17:00 – After the tour, transfer to your hotel in Kusadasi/Selcuk.

Overnight in Kusadasi/Selcuk.

Meal: breakfast. Transfers included.

In the morning your private vehicle drives you from your hotel in Kusadasi/Selcuk to Pamukkale.

• Pamukkale: The Turkish name means 'Cotton Castle', and it suits the place well. For thousands of years warm, calcium-heavy water has poured down this slope, leaving bright white travertine that looks like frozen waterfalls. It ranks among the most photographed natural sights in Turkey.
• White Calcium Terraces: Step onto the terraces and the first thing you notice is the warmth under your feet. Shoes come off at the entrance, and the mineral water running over the white surface is genuinely warm, not just pretty. Each broad ledge holds a shallow turquoise pool, and the water has flowed here for more than two thousand years.
• Hierapolis Ancient City: The colonnaded streets are the most striking sight in Hierapolis, with rows of marble columns running both ways along the main avenues. In Roman times they held up covered walkways that gave shade to traders and walkers. Earthquakes have tilted most of them, but enough still stand to show how broad and grand the main streets once were.
• Cleopatra Antique Thermal Pool: The water is the attraction here: warm, full of minerals and 36 degrees Celsius all year, fed by the thermal springs under Pamukkale. Marble column pieces from Roman buildings, toppled by ancient earthquakes, lie on the bottom. Entry is extra and is paid at the pool, not through the tour, so bring money if you want to swim. Swimming is not part of the tour price and is paid on site.

After the tour you return to your hotel in Kusadasi/Selcuk.

Overnight in Kusadasi/Selcuk.

Meal: breakfast. Transfers included. Free time.

Your private driver takes you to Izmir Airport for the flight to Cappadocia (flight time may change). Some days have no direct flight between Ephesus and Cappadocia; on those days a connecting flight is used.

You land at Kayseri or Nevsehir Airport (the arrival airport and time depend on availability) and transfer to your hotel in Cappadocia. The afternoon is free to explore on your own. Ideas: a sunset viewpoint above Goreme, Uchisar castle, or an optional Turkish night show.

Overnight in Cappadocia.

Meal: breakfast. 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 – After breakfast, your private guide and vehicle collect you for the northern route.

• Devrent Valley (Pink Valley): Seen from the air, the valley would look like loose pillars scattered over a flat plateau, which explains why drone photography is popular here. On foot, the same pillars feel far closer and more enveloping than any aerial shot suggests.
• Pasabag Open Air Museum: In the morning the light is softer and the crowds are thinner, and getting there before ten lets you photograph the chimneys with nobody in the shot. Where possible, your guide times the Red Tour to make use of this.
• Avanos Pottery Workshop: The pottery visit sits between the rock-formation stops and the last sightseeing stops of the Red Tour, so it works both as a cultural stop and as a midday break. Your guide tells you how long you have in the workshop and when to be back at the vehicle.
• Goreme Panoramic View: International travel photographers regularly list this view among the twenty best photo spots in Turkey, and it turns up in social media feeds from visitors of every nationality. People who see it in person almost always say it beats the screen.
• Zelve Open Air Museum: Other museum sites in the region focus mainly on churches with frescoes. Zelve instead shows the full domestic side of cave life: homes, storerooms, grain mills, shared spaces and small chapels, all cut from the same rock. At times you can hardly tell church from house.
• Uchisar Castle (exterior view): The village of Uchisar has grown around the foot of the castle rock. From the viewing terrace you can see how the settlement gathered beneath the natural fortress for protection, a town-and-castle pattern that was common across medieval Anatolia.

17:00 – Transfer back to your hotel in Cappadocia.

Overnight in Cappadocia.

Meal: breakfast. Transfers included.

09:30 – Your private guide and vehicle pick you up for the southern route.

• Red Valley: Plants are few but tough here. Hardy shrubs and the odd fruit tree grow in cracks between the rocks where a little soil collects. In early spring, small wildflowers appear on the valley floor and add sudden colour to the warm-toned rock.
• Rose Valley (Gulludere Valley): The colour of the valley changes through the day, from pale cream under the midday sun to deep rose and copper as the sun sinks in the west. Photographers and painters come here for that soft, shifting palette, which gives completely different scenes at different hours.
• Cavusin Village: From the top of old Cavusin you understand why the first residents chose this high cliff. The view takes in several valleys, nearby rock formations and the far edge of the plateau, making Cavusin one of the highest natural lookouts on the Yellow Tour.
• Pigeon Valley: Some dovecotes have carved frames around their openings, a sign that they showed off status and skill as well as serving farmers. Judging by the quality and amount of carving, the most finely framed openings cluster in parts of the cliff linked to wealthier farming families.
• Underground City: Carved benches, wall niches and low sleeping platforms in the deepest levels suggest people planned to stay for long periods, not just hide for a short time. When danger came, families went underground with food, water, animals, tools and religious objects, ready to stay as long as the threat lasted.

17:30 – Transfer to Kayseri or Nevsehir Airport, depending on your flight.

20:45 – Flight from Cappadocia to Istanbul (flight time may change).

22:15 – Landing in Istanbul (arrival airport and time depend on availability), then transfer to your hotel.

Overnight in Istanbul.

Meal: breakfast. Transfers included.

After breakfast you check out at the scheduled time. Your private driver then takes you to Istanbul Airport or Sabiha Gokcen Airport in time for your international flight, and your 9-day private Turkey package ends there.