Private travel through the landscapes and civilisations of Anatolia
A sweeping private journey through Türkiye, from imperial Istanbul to the Aegean archaeological world, the volcanic valleys of Cappadocia and the forested Black Sea. Continue into eastern Anatolia before entering the stone cities and prehistoric landscapes of Mesopotamia. Each region contributes a different chapter to a route designed to reveal the country’s extraordinary historical and geographical range.
Private guides and carefully arranged transfers accompany twenty-two days of discovery. Gallipoli and Troy, Hittite Hattusa, Ottoman Safranbolu, cliffside Sümela and medieval Ani sit alongside Lake Van, Göbekli Tepe and Mount Nemrut. Some days involve substantial driving, while selected eastern sectors use the best available air and road connections. Meals and accommodation are detailed in your personalised quotation.
Istanbul → Gallipoli → Troy → Çanakkale → Pergamon → İzmir / Selçuk → Ephesus → Aphrodisias → Pamukkale / Hierapolis → Antalya → Perge → Aspendos → Konya → Çatalhöyük → Sultanhanı → Cappadocia → Hattusa → Yazılıkaya → Ankara → Safranbolu → Amasya → Trabzon → Sümela / Altındere Valley → Kars → Ani → Lake Van / Akdamar → Mardin → Diyarbakır → Göbekli Tepe → Şanlıurfa → Mount Nemrut → Gaziantep → Istanbul
A personal welcome, luggage assistance and coordinated transfers make the arrival straightforward. Your local guiding team explains each touring day and the arrangements for the road, walking and flight sectors in your confirmed journey.
Illustrative branded vehicle; actual transport and airport services are confirmed before travel.
A proposed accommodation example in Cappadocia: a distinctive cave suite with a rock-hewn bedroom, traditional textiles and a separate living area overlooking the valleys. The suite also has a private garden and Jacuzzi. Final property and room category are selected separately, subject to availability.
A proposed accommodation example in Cappadocia: a distinctive cave suite with a rock-hewn bedroom, traditional textiles and a separate living area overlooking the valleys. The suite also has a private garden and Jacuzzi. Final property and room category are selected separately, subject to availability.
This is a proposed accommodation example for this route. The exact property, room category and availability are confirmed before booking.
Tell us about bedding preferences, dietary needs and mobility requirements before arrangements are finalised. Your team explains meeting points, transfer timings and walking or boarding requirements in advance.
Your Midasia Routes representative welcomes you at Istanbul Airport before a private transfer into the city. Domes, minarets and ferries introduce the meeting point of Europe and Asia as you approach the historic centre. Today is reserved for arrival and recovery, with no formal sightseeing planned. Settle into your accommodation and enjoy time to rest after the international flight. Over an included dinner, your guide introduces the journey ahead: an extraordinary passage from the Aegean and central Anatolia to the Black Sea, eastern highlands and Mesopotamia.
Explore Sultanahmet with your private guide, visiting Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, Hippodrome and Basilica Cistern. Continue to Topkapı Palace, where imperial courtyards overlook the waters that sustained the Ottoman capital. The Grand Bazaar and Spice Bazaar reveal Istanbul’s enduring commercial life through textiles, ceramics and fragrant stalls. A private or premium Bosphorus cruise carries you between Europe and Asia past waterfront mansions, palaces, mosques and fortresses. Finish with a panoramic introduction to the Asian shore before returning for dinner, with the city’s many historical layers brought vividly together.
Depart Istanbul early for the Dardanelles and the Gallipoli peninsula. Your guide introduces the landscapes and selected memorials of the 1915 campaign, placing individual stories within the wider history shared by Türkiye, Australia and New Zealand. After lunch, cross the strait and continue to Troy. Walk among successive archaeological layers, gates and defensive walls that connect a real ancient settlement with the world of Homer’s Iliad. Continue to Çanakkale for dinner and your overnight stay, reflecting on two very different chapters of history beside the same strategic waterway.
Follow the Aegean corridor south to Pergamon, once a powerful Hellenistic capital. Explore the hilltop Acropolis, where temple remains, palace foundations and the exceptionally steep theatre command views across the surrounding plain. Continue to the Asklepion, an ancient healing sanctuary associated with the physician Galen, to discover how treatment combined medicine, ritual and daily practice. After lunch, drive through the agricultural landscapes of western Anatolia towards İzmir and Selçuk. Arrive later in the day, settle into your accommodation and enjoy dinner before tomorrow’s exploration of Ephesus.
Begin early at Ephesus, following marble streets past fountains, baths and temples to the Library of Celsus and the great theatre. Visit the Terrace Houses when access permits, where frescoes and mosaics reveal the domestic world behind the monumental façades. Continue to the Basilica of St John and the House of the Virgin Mary in the surrounding hills, exploring the region’s early Christian traditions. After lunch, discover more of Selçuk, with the Temple of Artemis site a possible additional visit. Return for dinner after a richly layered archaeological day.
Travel inland to Aphrodisias, an ancient city distinguished by its marble sculpture and devotion to Aphrodite. Explore the stadium, theatre, temple and civic spaces before continuing after lunch to Pamukkale. Brilliant white travertine terraces mark the arrival at this remarkable thermal landscape. Above them, discover Hierapolis, including its theatre, necropolis and monumental gates. Walk only along the designated sections of the terraces, where mineral-rich waters continue their slow geological work. Dinner and a relaxed evening nearby complete a day that brings artistic achievement and natural spectacle together.
Leave Pamukkale after breakfast and travel through changing inland landscapes towards the Taurus Mountains and Antalya. Forested slopes and mountain roads eventually open towards the Mediterranean, with a scenic or archaeological pause if timing allows. After lunch, take a gentle introductory walk through Kaleiçi, Antalya’s historic quarter. Narrow lanes and restored houses lead towards Hadrian’s Gate and the old harbour, framed by the sea and distant mountains. The remaining afternoon is deliberately lighter after the drive, allowing time along the waterfront before an included dinner.
Explore the classical cities of Pamphylia before leaving the coast. At Perge, walk past monumental gates, colonnaded streets, baths, fountains and the stadium. Continue to Aspendos and its exceptionally preserved Roman theatre, whose tiers convey the scale of ancient public entertainment. After lunch, cross the Taurus Mountains towards the broad central Anatolian plateau. This is a substantial touring and driving day, ending in Konya. If arrival time and opening hours permit, enjoy an initial orientation around the Mevlana complex before dinner in the city associated with Rumi.
Begin at Konya’s Mevlana Museum, centred on the tomb of Rumi and the spiritual traditions that developed around his teachings. Continue to Çatalhöyük, subject to opening arrangements, where excavated mud-brick houses illuminate early settled life. After lunch, follow the old caravan routes across the plateau to Sultanhanı. Its monumental entrance and enclosed courtyard evoke the merchants and animals once sheltered within this Seljuk caravanserai. Continue towards Cappadocia as volcanic formations begin to reshape the horizon, arriving for dinner and the first of two nights in this extraordinary region.
An optional sunrise balloon flight offers a memorable beginning, subject to weather and aviation approval; watching from the ground is an alternative. After breakfast, visit Göreme Open-Air Museum and its frescoed rock-cut churches. Explore valleys of fairy chimneys, caves and pinnacles, pausing at viewpoints and small villages. After lunch, enter one of Cappadocia’s underground cities, discovering the tunnels and chambers once used as refuge. A pottery or carpet workshop introduces local craftsmanship before dinner, completing a day shaped by volcanic geology, Byzantine faith and remarkable human ingenuity.
Travel north from Cappadocia to Hattusa, capital of the Hittite Empire. Explore its gateways, walls and temple foundations across an extensive hillside setting, including the Lion Gate and King’s Gate. Nearby Yazılıkaya adds another perspective: processions of deities carved into natural rock chambers reveal the spiritual world behind the imperial capital. After lunch, continue to Ankara on a long overland journey. If time permits, enjoy a panoramic introduction to the citadel district before dinner, moving from Bronze Age power to the capital of modern Türkiye.
Visit Ankara’s Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, where archaeological collections bring together many cultures encountered on your journey, from early farming communities to Hittite and Phrygian societies. Continue to Anıtkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, for an introduction to the foundations of the modern republic. After lunch, drive north to Safranbolu. Explore its preserved Ottoman quarter, where timber-framed houses, mosques, hammams and market streets reflect a prosperous caravan town. Allow time for a workshop or coffee stop before dinner in this intimate architectural setting.
Continue east through the green interior behind the Black Sea, passing farming landscapes and wooded hills on the journey to Amasya. After lunch, explore the historic riverfront, where Ottoman houses stand beneath rock-cut tombs carved into the cliffs. These royal tombs recall the ancient kingdom of Pontus, while the town’s later importance as a training ground for Ottoman princes adds another historical layer. Walk selected streets and visit traditional houses or a local museum before dinner, appreciating how closely Amasya’s architecture is woven into its dramatic geography.
Travel across northern Anatolia towards the Black Sea and continue along the coast to Trabzon. Lunch is arranged en route through landscapes that become increasingly green and mountainous. On arrival, enjoy a gentle city introduction, with selected landmarks reflecting Byzantine, Ottoman and trading histories. The coastal atmosphere, tea-growing hills and maritime climate offer a striking contrast with the Aegean and central plateau visited earlier. Dinner is included this evening, with time to settle in before tomorrow’s excursion to the forested Altındere Valley and cliffside Sümela Monastery.
Drive into the forested Altındere Valley to Sümela Monastery, dramatically built against a sheer cliff. Walk the final approach according to current access arrangements, then explore the rock church, chapels, courtyards and surviving frescoes with your guide. The surrounding national park provides a vivid setting of mountain slopes and woodland. After lunch, return towards Trabzon and continue to Kars using the most practical available combination of air and private road transport. Dinner awaits on arrival in the eastern highlands, whose open plateau landscapes introduce a very different Anatolia.
Travel from Kars to Ani, where medieval monuments rise above a broad plateau beside the Armenian frontier. Enter through the city gate and explore the archaeological landscape, including the Cathedral of Ani and Church of the Redeemer, alongside surviving walls and other religious structures. Your guide traces the Armenian, Byzantine, Seljuk and regional influences that shaped this former trading capital. After lunch, return to Kars to explore its streets and Russian-period architecture. Dinner concludes a day balancing a powerful ruined city with the living cultural character of eastern Anatolia.
Continue south towards Lake Van using the confirmed combination of private transfers and available air services, or an overland journey where appropriate. At the lakeshore, weather and timing permitting, board a boat to Akdamar Island. The Armenian Church of the Holy Cross is celebrated for its exterior carvings and its setting against blue water and mountains. After lunch, enjoy selected Van-area sightseeing, potentially including the citadel panorama or archaeological heritage. Dinner is included, with the region’s vast spaces and layered histories providing a distinctive eastern Anatolian chapter.
Travel from Van towards Mardin using the most practical available domestic air connection and private transfer. Arrive among honey-coloured stone buildings overlooking the Mesopotamian plain and begin exploring the old city’s lanes, covered passages and terraces. Selected mosques, madrasas and historic houses reveal a meeting point of Arab, Kurdish, Turkish and Syriac cultures. Where opening schedules allow, include a Syriac Christian church or monastery. Lunch and dinner are included, with time to appreciate the carved façades and broad views that make Mardin one of the journey’s most atmospheric stops.
Leave Mardin for Diyarbakır, where dark basalt walls surround an ancient urban centre. Walk selected sections of the old city and visit important religious and civic monuments before continuing after lunch towards Şanlıurfa. At Göbekli Tepe, explore the monumental prehistoric sanctuary beneath its protective shelters. Your guide interprets the carved animals and symbols on the T-shaped pillars, explaining why the site transformed understanding of early ritual architecture. Continue to Şanlıurfa for dinner, with a first walk near the Pool of Abraham if the day’s timing allows.
Begin with selected highlights of Şanlıurfa’s old city and sacred landscape before travelling towards Mount Nemrut. After lunch, climb by road as far as access permits, then walk the final approach to the summit sanctuary. Colossal statues and fallen heads surround the funerary monument of Antiochus I of Commagene, combining Greek and Persian cultural influences in an extraordinary mountain setting. Seasonal snow and road conditions can affect access, requiring adjustments while preserving the Commagene experience. Continue to Gaziantep for dinner after a demanding but rewarding touring day.
Spend the morning at Gaziantep’s Zeugma Mosaic Museum, discovering Roman mosaics rescued from the Euphrates region, including the celebrated Gypsy Girl. Continue through the old commercial quarter, where copper workshops, spice merchants and traditional markets reveal the city’s trading character. After lunch, transfer to the airport for your flight to Istanbul. A private driver welcomes you on arrival and brings you into the city for your final night. Dinner provides time to reflect on an exceptional journey through Anatolia’s coastal cities, mountain sanctuaries and ancient frontiers.
Enjoy a relaxed final day in Istanbul, shaped around your international departure time. If the schedule allows, take a last walk beside the Bosphorus, revisit a favourite neighbourhood or simply rest after the journey across Türkiye. Breakfast, lunch and dinner remain included and are coordinated with the flight arrangements. At the appropriate time, your private chauffeur transfers you to the airport, with departure assistance as available. The journey closes with memories stretching from the Dardanelles and Cappadocia to the Black Sea, Lake Van and the ancient landscapes of Mesopotamia.
Recommended months: May and mid-September–October
Typical daytime temperatures: Approximately 19–26°C in Istanbul/Cappadocia; southern coast can reach 25–30°C
Typical night temperatures: Istanbul approximately 14–18°C; Cappadocia approximately 7–11°C
May and mid-September–October offer the best balance for this extensive cultural journey, avoiding the strongest summer heat and winter cold. Typical daytime highs are around 19–26°C in Istanbul and Cappadocia, while the southern coast can reach 25–30°C. Nights are milder in Istanbul, around 14–18°C, but cooler in Cappadocia, around 7–11°C. Eastern uplands and early-morning outings need extra layers. Rain remains possible, and temperatures vary considerably across this wide-ranging route.
Temperatures are approximate seasonal averages, not a forecast. Final dates, access and local arrangements are confirmed before booking.
