A 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul joins four regions: the old capital, Cappadocia, Pamukkale and Ephesus. Istanbul fills days two and three, Cappadocia days four and five, Pamukkale day seven and Ephesus day eight. Island cruises sit under Greece Tours on the homepage.
Day six is Kusadasi and day nine returns to Istanbul. Cards further down open live GetYourGuide listings.
How were the land walls of Istanbul built in three lines, as explained in a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul?
Walls in three lines close the west side of old Istanbul. A moat, a low outer wall and a tall inner wall make up the plan. They belong to day three in a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Walls of the inner line carry ninety-six towers.
Day three lists the old city walls in a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Walls of this line rose in the early fifth century, when Anthemius served as praetorian prefect under Theodosius II. The main wall is the one work of Anthemius that still stands.
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An older line came first. Constantine’s fortification was a single wall with towers at regular distances. It began at the Church of St Anthony on the Golden Horn, near the Ataturk Bridge. The Theodosian line lies further west and almost doubled the size of the city.
A moat forms the outermost line, over twenty metres wide and up to ten metres deep. A crenellated wall one and a half metres tall edges its inner side. Short walls cross the moat and narrow towards the top, so they cannot serve as bridges. Scholars read them as dams that divide the moat into sections.
The outer wall is two metres thick at its base. Arched chambers open at the level of the peribolos terrace. It forms the middle line of the walls set out in a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Walls of this line still carry sixty-two towers, square or crescent-shaped, twelve to fourteen metres tall.
The inner wall is a solid mass, four and a half to six metres thick and twelve metres high. Cut limestone faces it, and lime mortar mixed with crushed brick fills the core. Seven to eleven bands of brick, about forty centimetres thick, cross the structure. They bind the facing to the core and add endurance to earthquakes.
Ninety-six towers, fifteen to twenty metres tall, strengthen the inner wall, mainly square, with octagonal ones among them. A floor splits each tower inside into two chambers that do not connect. These towers belong to the walls placed in a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Walls between neighbouring towers run from twenty-one to seventy-seven metres.
Nine main gates pierce both walls, and smaller posterns add more openings. The sources divide the gates into Public Gates and Military Gates, which alternate along the line. These gates belong to the walls named in a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Walls at the Gate of Selymbria use the Turkish name Silivri Kapisi.
The Gate of the Spring stands between heptagonal towers thirty-five and thirty-six, rebuilt extensively in later Byzantine times. The Gate of Rhegion, between towers fifty and fifty-one, is the gate that keeps almost its original fifth-century look. The Gate of Charisius stands on the sixth hill, seventy-seven metres up, the highest point of the old city.
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The line begins at the Marble Tower, or Mermer Kule, on the Propontis coast. It ends in the Blachernae quarter, near the Palace of the Porphyrogenitus, called Tekfur Sarayi. Two later walls enclose Blachernae, the inner one linked with Heraclius and the outer one with Leo V.
The walls were largely kept intact through the Ottoman period. UNESCO inscribed the Historic Areas of Istanbul in nineteen eighty-five, and the land walls form its fourth component. That component is the line covered in a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Walls restored in the nineteen eighties received financial support from UNESCO.
Where does the Maiden’s Tower stand off the Asian shore, as set out near a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul?
Tower and islet rest on a natural cliff about two hundred metres off Salacak, in Uskudar. The ministry sets that cliff between the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara. It is told near a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Tower buildings date largely from eighteen thirty-two and thirty-three.
The cliff overlooks the Bosphorus to the north, Marmara to the south and the Golden Horn to the west. Salacak, the Uskudar neighbourhood facing the islet, lies on the Asian shore. Day three of this route names the tower near a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Tower comes last in that day’s boat trip.
The Black Sea lies at the strait’s northern end, and the Sea of Marmara lies at its southern end. The strait parts Asia Minor from Thrace. Fresher water flows south at the surface, while salt water flows north near the bottom. A popular explanation reads the Greek name Bosporos as cattle strait.
Across the water, Uskudar once held a town called Chrysopolis, meaning Golden City. Settlers from Megara founded it, and it served as a harbour and shipyard. That shore is set out near a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Tower and the Ayazma Mosque, dated to seventeen sixty, stand opposite each other.
In the fifth century BC the islet held a customs point. A tower there checked ships that came from the Black Sea. The rock carried the name Arcla, meaning small castle. In the twelfth century another tower stood there, joined by a chain to a tower beside the Mangana Monastery.
Grand Vizier Nevsehirli Damat Ibrahim Pasha had a lantern set on the wooden tower to guide ships at night. From then on the building served as a lighthouse, not a castle. That role is told near a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Tower lights later became automatic, and a foghorn sounded in low-visibility weather.
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The renovation that gave the tower its outline also brought a marble slab to the door. The slab bears the sultan’s signature, in an inscription by the calligrapher Rakim. Earlier repairs gave the dome a lead cover and gave the lantern its masonry and glass.
In nineteen forty-three, large rocks were laid around the tower to stop it sliding into the sea. The cistern was filled and sealed with concrete in nineteen sixty-five. That repair history is recorded near a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Tower walls kept their outer faces, while the inside was rebuilt in reinforced concrete.
The ministry says the cement of nineteen forty-four harmed the walls through its salt and chemical content. Earlier repairs joined column and floor with sand that held seashells. Smooth iron fittings rusted and cracked the structure and the flagpole. Georadar, laser scanners and chemical tests mapped the walls. One hundred and twenty tons of injection material filled the gaps.
Hidden stainless steel strengthened the walls, and the steel belts added in the late nineteen nineties came off. More than five hundred tons of reinforced concrete, flagpole included, were lifted out. That work is explained near a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Tower walls regained their lost crenels, the notches along a wall top.
Waves from the north had dragged old fortification material from under the island and caused cracks. The sea is about thirty metres deep at the north-western corner. Steel and concrete piles were anchored to bedrock at an average depth of twenty-four metres. The flagpole’s copper crescent and star were gilded again.
How does the Ozkonak underground city shield its rooms with air shafts, as explained beside a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul?
Narrow holes feed air to sealed rooms, as recorded beside a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Shafts about five centimetres across serve the carved rooms of Ozkonak, a city cut into volcanic rock.
Ozkonak is a town in the Avanos district of Nevsehir Province, and the underground city carries its name. The culture ministry’s portal places the city on the northern slope of Mount Idis. There, the layers of volcanic tuff run thick. Builders cut rooms and galleries straight into that rock.
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Tuff is volcanic ash that has hardened into solid rock. The encyclopedia calls it a relatively soft stone, used for building since ancient times. The ministry says settlements of this kind were made by carving soft tuff. That rock is described beside a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Shafts here were cut from the same soft stone.
Cappadocia’s relief is a high plateau, above a thousand metres. Ignimbrites of Miocene age are present in the area. Its thick volcanic deposits come from eruptions long ago at Erciyes, Hasan and Gollu Dag. Over millions of years, wind and water shaped these soft volcanic rocks. Layers of harder volcanic rock resisted the erosion and stayed standing.
Ozkonak has a feature that sets it apart from Kaymakli and Derinkuyu, says the ministry. Very narrow, long holes link its floors for communication. The text on these holes is set out beside a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Shafts are not the only link, as a pipe system for communication reaches every level.
Closing a room did not cut off its air. When the entrances of the neatly carved rooms were shut, narrow holes still supplied ventilation, as the ministry states. The encyclopedia adds that each carved room had further piping of its own. In the Goreme area, people hollowed underground dwellings out of soft tuff.
Wide galleries spread across the site, and tunnels join them, say two ministry texts. The museum listing names tunnels, bolt stones, a barn and a winery for the city. That plan is laid out beside a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Shafts give the plan its vertical links, and tunnels give it the sideways ones.
At Derinkuyu, another underground city of the region, the main central shaft links the levels. Its openings never overlap from one level to the next. Smaller vents join the rooms to the central shafts. That layout is compared beside a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Shafts of this kind are read as deliberate engineering for airflow.
Kaymakli is another underground city of the region, and air shapes its plan. On four floors of the city, each space is organised around ventilation shafts. The main ventilation shaft is about eighty metres long. A room’s design follows how much ventilation reaches it, the encyclopedia states.
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The culture portal lists a ventilation shaft, a water well, a wine-press room and bolt stones. The encyclopedia names a well, ventilation, a winery and moving stone doors. Both lists are set out beside a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Shafts head the portal’s list, ahead of the well, the press room and the stones.
The city came to light in nineteen seventy-two, when a local farmer followed his spare crop water. Digging then revealed a larger complex. The encyclopedia says the builders were probably people of Byzantine Cappadocia, though the age is uncertain. It gives the depth of the complex as forty metres.
Which trails and rock churches run through Red Valley and Gulludere, as mapped past a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul?
Cross Church, Three-Cross Church and Yovakim-Anna Church stand in Gulludere. Uzumlu Church in Red Valley is mapped past a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Trails there cross soft volcanic tuff, a rock made from ash.
Goreme National Park spans close to one hundred square kilometres, in Nevsehir Province beside Urgup, Cavusin and Goreme. UNESCO has listed the park since nineteen eighty-five. The two valleys are set out past a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Trails in both valleys cross the same volcanic landscape.
The park lies in a volcanic region close to Mount Hasan and Mount Erciyes. Hasan is a stratovolcano that has been active for thirteen million years. Records show no eruption of it in historical times. Together with Erciyes, it dominates the landscape of the Cappadocian Volcanic Province, which holds ignimbrites, volcanic fields and stratovolcanoes.
Pyroclastic flows lay down ignimbrite, and the hot particles can weld together. Its colour runs from white, grey and pink to beige, brown or black. The thick Cappadocian beds erupted from old volcanoes about nine to three million years ago. At Hasan, ash flows channelled by the land formed fans or valley flows.
Tuff is solid rock made from volcanic ash, and it is relatively soft. Builders have used the stone since ancient times. A fairy chimney is a pedestal of soft rock under a harder cap. The weight of the cap makes the soft pedestal strong. Undercutting makes the cap fall, and the cone beneath then erodes quickly.
Monastic life in Cappadocia began in the fourth century. Anchorites, who lived alone, cut cells into the rock. The Goreme municipality records rock-cut churches, monasteries and shelter areas in Gulludere and Kizilcukur. Both valleys lie around Cavusin, which stands on the road between Avanos and Goreme.
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Gulludere is named for its rock, which shifts to a rose colour in daylight. The Goreme municipality puts the walking trail there at about four kilometres. After a certain stretch the valley splits into two parts. Those parts are listed past a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Trails there run on through both parts.
Cross Church stands on the left at the entrance to Gulludere, and a wooden staircase leads up to it. Its second name is St. Agathangelus Church. Three-Cross Church is known for the crosses carved into its ceiling. Yovakim-Anna Church holds a very uncommon fresco of Mary, the municipality says.
Red Valley is Kizilcukur in Turkish, and its trail begins at the path down to Uzumlu Church. A church list gives that building a second name, St. Nichitas Chapel. That church is recorded past a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Trails then run through tunnels, and one ends in a steep drop with two iron ladders.
Red Valley joins Meskendir Valley after a while, and Meskendir also meets Gulludere. Meskendir is four thousand metres long. Its green slopes hold nightingales, rock nuthatches and blackbirds. Butterflies are plentiful there in June. The whole valley is traced past a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Trails along it end at Cavusin village.
The Turkish national commission for UNESCO calls the park one of two mixed cultural and natural sites in Turkey. It describes rock-hewn churches from the Middle Byzantine period, the tenth to the twelfth century. Streams cut steep-sided valleys through the park’s plateaus and high hills. The older quarter of Cavusin sits upon a large rock ridge and spreads around it.
The Ministry of Culture and Tourism portal speaks of hundreds of churches carved into the rocks. Churches in the valleys of Goreme, Gulludere among them, lie outside the museum boundaries. That record is told past a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Trails here pass rock churches cut into soft tuff.
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What remains of the Temple of Apollo and the Plutonium at Hierapolis, as recorded along a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul?
Foundations and ghost-walls mark Apollo’s Temple B, as set out along a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Plutonium is a gas cave with an arch naming Pluto and Kore. Strabo wrote of it in the first century BC.
The sanctuary of Apollo fills a large space in the monumental heart of Hierapolis. On the middle terrace stand three temple buildings, which the Italian mission labels A, B and C. Temple B was the shrine of Apollo, and the mission dates it to the Julio-Claudian period.
Stone removal in the early Byzantine period hit Temple B harder than its neighbours. Excavation recorded the loss of its marble decoration and of part of its travertine foundations. The floor plan can be rebuilt in part, from ghost-walls, the outlines of walls that are gone. The sanctuary was taken apart in stages from the fourth century AD.
Stone from Temple B was reused. Blocks that show the wall lines went into the hall of the Great Baths, a fourth-century work. Other marble blocks lay in deposits behind buildings A and C, kept as building stone. The deposit behind building A held the bulk of the statues found in the nineteen-sixties.
Digging in front of temples B and C turned up sixty-five fragments of an Athena in crystal white marble. They cover the helmet, hair, shoulders, arms and the long robe. Digital fitting gives her a height of over two metres. She probably stood in the open air between the two temples.
Listed along a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul, Plutonium is a cave that Strabo described. In the first century BC he gave its opening as wide enough for one man, yet deep. A four-sided rail ringed it. A dense vapour made the ground hard to see inside, while the air outside stayed clear in calm weather.
A seismic fault crosses the site, and its cracks let thermal water and noxious gas rise. That is the geology behind the cave, as told along a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Plutonium is tied to that fault, and carbon dioxide measured at the site reaches about ninety per cent in places.
A well in the Apollo sanctuary is noted along a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Plutonium was the name diggers gave it in the nineteen-sixties, for gas and a hot spring rose there. A reading of two thousand and nine found an oracle shrine instead, with a round monopteros and an alphabet inscription.
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A survey south of the Apollo sanctuary found monumental buildings and thermal springs. That narrowed the search for the cave. Diggers uncovered its entrance arch in two thousand and twelve. An inscription gives the arch to Pluto and Kore. Identified along a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul, Plutonium rests on that carved line.
The cave mouth has a wall with Ionic half-columns. Above it rises a straight theatre about thirty metres long, with room for about six hundred people. A drop in level kept viewers out of the space before the cave. Mapped along a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul, Plutonium thus had its own stand for watchers.
A fine wall of the first century BC encloses the cave sanctuary. A tholos stands before it, with a pool on each side. Rock above the cave bears cuttings, sockets and hollows. The oldest levels, reached in two thousand and thirteen, show a stepped altar typical of the Phrygian cult of Cybele.
What do the halls of the Ephesus Museum in Selcuk hold, as listed at a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul?
Halls in Selcuk sort finds by the place they were dug, and the ministry counts about sixty-four thousand works. Houses, graves and fountains have halls, as set out at a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Artifacts also come from the Temple of Artemis and Cukurici Mound.
The museum stands in Selcuk, near Ephesus, which is day eight of this route. Its works span the Mycenaean, Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman periods, the ministry states. Digs and gifts add more each year, as told at a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Artifacts from those sources join the older stock.
The ministry says works are shown where they were found, not by age or type. So the hall names follow find groups. Statues and carved building parts also stand in the inner and middle gardens. An Information Hall stands at the entrance, and the list names Ancient Coins and Ephesus Through the Ages.
The Terrace Houses were six luxury homes with mosaic floors and painted walls, and their hall holds household finds. Weights, lighting tools, weaving tools, jewellery and items for music and entertainment stand there. Medical and cosmetic tools join them, as described at a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Artifacts of home life fill that hall.
The hall shows a section of the Socrates Room, set with frescoes, mosaics, furniture and photo mannequins. A fine white marble portrait of Socrates shows wavy hair, a beard and a moustache covering the upper lip. The Hunting Artemis statue was found in a niche of the Socrates Room, in the Terrace Houses.
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Read at a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul, Artifacts include a statue of Marcus Aurelius. It is white marble of the second century AD, with fine craftsmanship. The forehead wrinkles are prominent, and the back is left raw. The emperor wears a paludamentum, a cloak that a fibula, or clasp, holds at the right shoulder.
The white marble Eros head is broken at the neck and leans slightly right. It replicates Lysippos’ Eros stretching the bow, a work of the late fourth century BC. A sculpture group shows Androklos, the legendary founder of Ephesus, with his dog. The group is a Roman-period copy of Skopas’ Meleager, a work of the fourth century BC.
A bronze Eros on a dolphin, found on Curetes Street, dates to the second century AD. The Egyptian Priest, also bronze, stands on a rectangular base in the typical Archaic pose. Its hieroglyphic text names the god the priest served and the king ruling Egypt then. The ministry calls it important for Ephesus’s ties with Egypt.
Noted at a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul, Artifacts include the Muses Sarcophagus. It was found west of the Vedius Gymnasium, and its lid resembles a roof. The Muses stand between columns and arches. Eros figures sit on the corners of the roof. Crosses and inscriptions on the lid show Byzantine reuse.
The Resting Warrior was found during digs at the Polio Fountain. The young man is shown half lying, with his weight on the left arm, which rests on a rock. His wavy hair is held by a band, and his face looks calm. A sixteenth-century Ottoman bath was also restored as exhibition space, the ministry states.
A fourteenth-century Turkish building behind the museum became the small Ayasuluk Library, for newspapers and books. An ancient shop in the Ephesus agora was restored as a museum for the visually impaired. It has two parts, with copies and original works. Listed at a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul, Artifacts appear in these extra sections too.
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How do the dovecotes of Pigeon Valley use the soft rock, as explained with a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul?
Dovecotes here are rooms cut from tuff, as explained with a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Dovecotes carved into the valley sides hold niches for roosting birds. Tuff is ash from ancient eruptions that set into soft rock.
Tuff forms from volcanic ash thrown out of a vent. Once the ash has settled, it turns to solid stone. Ash rich in volcanic glass sets quickly. Minerals such as zeolites, clays and calcite grow from dissolved substances and bind it. Three volcanoes, Erciyes, Hasan and Golludag, erupted the thick deposits of Cappadocia.
Tuff is a relatively soft rock, and builders have used it since ancient times. A Turkish architecture journal says tuff is easily hewn into a room, house, store, barn or hall. By the early Bronze Age, people were probably carving dugouts out of it, shaping rooms from the rock itself.
Day five of this route lists Pigeon Valley, as noted with a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Dovecotes line a valley between Uchisar, at twelve hundred and seventy metres, and Goreme, at eleven hundred and four. The valley’s rock formations were carved into ancient dovecotes.
Wild rock doves roost and breed on cliffs and rock ledges. Their wild nesting sites include caves, canyons and sea cliffs, where they settle in crevices. Cut niches in a tuff wall echo that cliff setting. The domestic pigeon descends from the rock dove, which people have kept for thousands of years.
A rock dove nests on a flimsy platform of straw and sticks on a ledge, under cover. Two white eggs are laid, and both parents share the seventeen to nineteen days of incubation. Laying runs up to six times a year, as noted with a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Dovecotes keep the chicks, called squabs.
A flock numbers fifty to five hundred birds, depending on the food supply. Chicks fledge after about thirty days. Guano is a highly effective fertiliser because it is rich in nitrogen, phosphate and potassium. Uchisar’s account of the valley uses that word for the droppings of its pigeons.
A Turkish architecture journal says the cliffs and ridges near Urgup, Goreme and Uchisar are filled with dove cotes. Cotes on high ground helped doves nest in safety, and their manure fed fields. Vineyards took the manure too, as set out with a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Dovecotes appear in ancient Iran and Anatolia too.
Cappadocia Tour From Istanbul covers Istanbul too.
Emir is a white grape native to the Cappadocia region, grown mainly in Nevsehir Province. Its vineyards stand on volcanic soils of sand, decomposed tuff and limestone. Vineyards are planted above a thousand metres. Summers are hot, winters are cold and day and night temperatures differ widely.
Gesi in Kayseri lies beyond the route, as set out with a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Dovecotes there are tower-like stone structures, hundreds of them, scattered outside the town. Each tower is the upper part of a rock-hewn cave holding hundreds of nests. Nest chambers measure about five by five or five by seven metres.
A university journal study of the Gesi dovecotes gives each nest room as five metres by five or seven. Four or five timber beams cross the space, and doves perch there before they reach their nests. A bowl hewn into the tuff gathers rainwater and snow, and the birds drink from it.
Birds feed themselves from spring to autumn, as set out with a 9 day highlights of Turkey tour from Istanbul. Dovecotes at Gesi need feeding by people in winter. People enter by a short tunnel, and the door threshold keeps snakes out. Droppings are collected at intervals and carried down that tunnel in sacks.