Turkey tour 2014

This tour allowed us to visit the most fascinating places of Western Turkey. The tour organised by Turbanitalia was very nice, you really see many places, but I wouldn't recommend it to elderly people or those who want comfort and relaxation, because many kilometres are covered by coach and you have to walk a fair amount, often under the sun, and almost always getting up very early in the morning. Starting from Istanbul we visited the Topkapi Palace and the Grand Bazaar, then headed to the capital Ankara to visit the Archaeological Museum. From there we reached Cappadocia, the land of the famous fairy chimneys and of immense charm, where we visited the localities of Goreme, Uchisar, Aucillar, Pasabag and Avanos.

Some of us took the hot-air balloon ride; we preferred to skip it and probably did the right thing, in fact the sites can be seen very well from the ground too and above all we avoided a very early wake-up on the day when we had to cover more than 600 km (those who did it that day were practically in a coma...). From here we reached Konya and visited the Mausoleum of Mevlana, that of the whirling dervishes, then headed to the petrified waterfalls of Pamukkale, the ancient Hierapolis. Then we continued to Aphrodisias and Ephesus, famous for the Library of Celsus, arriving at Izmir to visit Galen's Asclepeion at Pergamon and then the ruins of Troy, with an overnight stay in Canakkale.

Finally we returned to Istanbul through the Dardanelles Strait and there we visited Hagia Sophia, the ancient Hippodrome, the underground Cistern and the Blue Mosque, ending with a boat trip on the Bosphorus between Asia and Europe. The cost isn't excessive for this tour and, except for the guide (often rude and surly), we had a very good experience.