A 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour joins three regions in one week. Day two is old Istanbul, days three and four are Cappadocia, and day five is the Antalya coast. More sea days sit under Greece Tours on the homepage.
Day six flies back to Istanbul, and day seven closes the trip. Cards further down open live GetYourGuide listings.
What do the monuments of the Hippodrome of Constantinople show, as listed in a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour?
Egyptian, Greek and Roman monuments share one square, as listed in a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Monuments of granite, bronze and masonry line the spina, the middle barrier of the old racing track in Sultanahmet Square.
The Hippodrome of Constantinople was a U-shaped racing track. Its ground is Sultanahmet Square in Istanbul. The imperial lodge, the Kathisma, stood at the eastern end, with a private passage to the Great Palace. Starting gates stood at the north end. The curved south end, the sphendone, keeps a lower part standing.
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Day two of the plan reaches the square, as named in a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Monuments of the spina stand in excavated pits inside a landscaped garden. The real track lies about two metres below the present surface. Paving outlines its old course above ground.
The Obelisk of Theodosius began at Karnak in Egypt, raised by the pharaoh Thutmose III. Its red granite came from Aswan, and the shaft first stood about thirty metres tall. The lower end was damaged in antiquity. Constantius II had it carried on the Nile to Alexandria. It stayed there until Theodosius I raised it on the spina.
The marble pedestal carries carvings, as noted in a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Monuments of Egyptian stone sit on a Roman base. The north face shows the raising of the shaft, the south face a chariot race. The east face shows music and dancing, and the west face kneeling figures with tribute.
Two inscriptions on the pedestal tell of the raising. Five Latin hexameters stand on the east face and two Greek couplets on the west face. The Greek gives thirty-two days for the work, the Latin thirty. In the eighteenth century Mary Montagu enclosed the Latin text in a letter.
The Serpent Column began at Delphi, as told in a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Monuments from Greek lands include it, moved to Constantinople by Constantine in AD three hundred and twenty-four. Three bronze snakes formed a column eight metres high. Greek city-states gave it to Apollo in the spring of four hundred and seventy-eight BC.
The coils carry lettering. The thirteenth coil bears a short line, and coils twelve to three name thirty-one city-states. The ground was raised in sixteen thirty and hid that part. Charles Thomas Newton had the base dug out in eighteen fifty-five, and C. Frick read the names a year later.
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The Walled Obelisk stands at the south end, as laid out in a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Monuments of the central barrier include it, west of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque. It is thirty-two metres high, and its first build date in late antiquity is unknown.
In the tenth century Constantine VII had the Walled Obelisk repaired and coated with plates of gilt bronze. A Greek inscription in iambic trimeter dates from that work and names his son Romanos II. Medieval Arab writers called the obelisk the tower of brass, and al-Harawi noted potsherds and nuts set among its stones.
The Column of Constantine rises at Cemberlitas, as recorded in a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Monuments from Constantine’s day include it, and it is the oldest of them to survive in Istanbul. It was finished about AD three hundred and twenty-eight. It stood in the middle of the Forum of Constantine, on the Mese road.
Very large porphyry drums form the shaft, set on a white marble pedestal that is hidden from view. Carved laurel wreaths masked the joins. The top stands about thirty-five metres above the ground. Iron hoops added in the early sixteenth century gave the name Cemberlitas, meaning hooped stone. Fire scorch marks gave the name Burnt Column.
What stands on the colonnaded street of Perge, as mapped near a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour?
Street shops and a water channel line Perge’s colonnaded street, mapped near a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Street fountains numbered four, all monumental, and two large baths took water from that channel, the ministry text says.
Day five of this route reaches Perge, as drawn near a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Street planning rests on two main avenues, one east-west and one north-south. Roman planners named an east-west street a decumanus and a north-south street a cardo. The colonnaded street forms the north-south axis of the lower town.
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A plan used on the acropolis in the Late Classical period was carried to the lower town. That came with the Hellenistic expansion. The ministry text calls the street a well-preserved example, as stated near a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Street layout in the Classical city was a grid-iron plan, says the UNESCO tentative list text.
The channel crosses the street end to end, as shown near a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Street fountains and baths together gave Perge the look of a water city, UNESCO says. A long central channel was a prominent feature for a Roman city. It held a series of cascading pools.
Hadrian’s nymphaeum fed the city channel, as plotted near a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Street water began at the edge of the acropolis, where this northern nymphaeum gathered the outflow of a plentiful supply. Sculptures decorated it, among them the river god Cestrus, with water cascading beneath him.
The southern nymphaeum faces the courtyard of Septimius Severus. It stands next to the propylon, the monumental entrance, of the southern baths. The hydraulic system of those baths supplied it. Aurelia Paulina, a priestess of Artemis, paid for a large nymphaeum in a trapezoidal courtyard outside the southern gate.
Shops stood on both sides of the main street, and the channel supplied them with water. The macellum is dated to the second century AD, as noted near a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Street shops of this market building sit behind porticoes with mosaic floors, and they face the square and the street.
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The Hellenistic south gate dates from the third century BC and stood at the coast-facing entrance. Round towers flank it. Excavators unearthed the walls of that age and a circular tower of the south gate. The ministry text says the lower town’s wall, towers, bastions and gates largely stand. Roman and Late Antique builders repaired that wall.
Plancia Magna paid for work on the gate in the reign of Hadrian. Just beyond it lay a horseshoe-shaped courtyard with twenty-eight statues set in two tiers. A statue base calls her daughter of the city. On each statue, two Latin lines address the genius of the city, and two Greek lines address its fortune.
She held the post of demiourgos, the highest civil office in Perge. The name of the holder dated the year in official papers. She is the only known woman to hold it. The text for the imperial woman Matidia carries the posthumous title diva, and Plotina’s does not. So the statues date roughly to the years between their deaths.
The stadium lies north of the theatre and dates from the second century BC. The ministry text gives it room for about twelve thousand spectators. Sports contests and races were held there. The ministry text also lists a rectangular agora, tall towers, monumental fountains, baths and colonnaded streets among the social buildings.
Istanbul University has excavated Perge systematically since nineteen forty-six. The archaeologist Jale Inan began with Mansel that year, at the Temple of Artemis. She returned to the theatre in nineteen eighty-five, working there until nineteen ninety-two. The site has been a protected archaeological site since nineteen eighty-one.
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How is the theatre of Aspendos built, as explained beside a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour?
Theatre seats at Aspendos rest partly on a hill slope and partly on stone arcades. A two-storey stage building completes the plan, as set out beside a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Theatre diameter is ninety-six metres.
Technically the building is a theatre, not an amphitheatre. An amphitheatre is fully round or oval. The building stands in the ancient city of Aspendos, in Antalya Province. The orchestra measures twenty-three point nine metres across. The stage backdrop stood fifteen point seven metres high. Builders raised the structure in the second century AD.
Its makers are known by name. An inscription lists the brothers Curtius Crispinus and Curtius Auspicatus as commissioners, with Zenon as architect. Zenon was the son of Theodorus and a native of the city. Aspendos itself stands on a high hill on the bank of the Koprucay, the river also known as the Eurymedon.
The seating bowl, the cavea, is partly built against the slope of the hill. That slope gives it a natural foundation. That setting is read beside a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Theatre arcades of stone carry the rest of the seating, so the slope supports only part of the bowl.
Seating tiers fall into two zones. The lower part of the cavea has twenty tiers, and the upper part has twenty-one. A vaulted gallery of columns and arches is located above them. Vaulted galleries called parodoi on both sides provide the entrance. The stone-paved orchestra is semicircular, following the Roman style.
The stage building has two storeys and was adorned with columns, niches and statues. The stage wall, called the scaenae frons, has remained intact. That stage end is described beside a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Theatre doorways on the stage platform number five and give the performers access.
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The high stage still has its supporting columns, and it served to set the audience apart from the world outside. The sloping wooden ceiling over the stage has been lost. Post holes for fifty-eight masts are found in the upper level. The masts held a velarium, an awning pulled over the audience for shade.
The Seljuks repaired the theatre from time to time and used it as a caravanserai. In the thirteenth century they made a palace of the stage building. That phase is told beside a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Theatre preservation has two causes, the palace use and a compact design joining stage building and cavea.
The aqueduct of Aspendos is nineteen kilometres long. Its water was brought from two springs at Pinarbasi through canals, bridges and tunnels. The line ends in an inverted siphon, not an open channel. Arches near the city centre run unbroken for two kilometres, a rare survival in the Mediterranean world.
Three bridge sections make up the siphon. They measure five hundred and ninety-two, nine hundred and twenty-four and a hundred and fifty-four metres. The siphon’s shape is traced beside a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Theatre and aqueduct meet different ground, since the siphon crosses a marshy valley on arches.
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The central section had forty-six arches up to fifteen metres high, and twenty-nine of them still stand. Two towers mark the bends where the water ascended and descended, and they are still thirty metres high. The pipes were carved limestone blocks fitted together with a mortar of lime and olive oil.
A reused inscription names Tiberius Claudius Italicus as the aqueduct’s financier, though research has yet to prove it. Turkey lists the theatre and aqueducts as one entry on its Tentative List for World Heritage. That entry is noted beside a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Theatre restoration in modern times returned the building to its original state.
Which rock-cut churches line the Red Valley and Gulludere Valley, as recorded past a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour?
Churches cut into pink and red tuff line both valleys, among them Ayvali, Hacli and Uc Hacli. The Goreme municipality’s record extends past a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Churches named for ceiling crosses include Hacli and Uc Hacli.
Both valleys lie behind the village of Cavusin, beside the road that joins Goreme and Avanos. A university paper says Kizilcukur, the Red Valley, takes its name from its red rock. It calls Gulludere the pinker valley. The Goreme municipality adds that the rocks of Gulludere turn rose-coloured in daylight, as local tradition tells.
The record of these valleys runs past a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Churches in Gulludere, per the Goreme municipality, are Yovakim-Anna, Ayvali, Hacli and Uc Hacli. The paper puts Uc Hacli at the valley start, Ayvali deeper east, and Hacli where the valleys meet. A church list names the Uzumlu chapel in the Red Valley.
The valley rock has three layers. A white ignimbrite lies at the base, a pink one above, and lake sediment on top. Samples from the churches held quartz and plagioclase, with biotite, hematite and clay minerals. The paper links those minerals to the red tones. A Hacli sample, from the darker Kizilcukur zone, held the highest iron oxide share.
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Tuff made these churches possible. The paper’s rock study reaches past a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Churches carved in tuff needed no static calculation and no load-bearing part, since tuff cuts easily and holds itself up. UNESCO calls this architecture made by removing material, not by joining parts into a building.
Ayvali has a rectangular plan with two equal naves, each barrel-vaulted and each ending in an apse. The paper’s plan study stretches past a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Churches dated by inscription include Ayvali, whose wall text points to the early tenth century. The text names Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus as its patron.
Uc Hacli means the church of three crosses. Its flat ceiling carries a Latin cross at the centre and medallions with cross reliefs on either side. Two palm reliefs lie beside them. The reliefs are thought to be older than the paintings. Historians place the church in the tenth century, because Archaic wall paintings were applied over the reliefs.
Hacli is a cave church named for a vast, well-kept Latin cross carved in its ceiling. The paper says it is cut into a natural cone that stands alone. The measured survey looks past a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Churches here can be small: the Hacli nave is about five metres by four.
Rock-cut churches copy built forms. Columns and pilasters stand in the rock without carrying any load. Church furniture such as altars and fonts was carved from the rock in the main. The Hacli apse, the paper adds, holds a throne with seats at its sides. Yovakim-Anna church, the municipality says, has a rare fresco of the Virgin Mary.
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UNESCO states that Iconoclast-period decoration kept to a strict minimum of symbols, mainly carved or painted crosses. Red paint on bare rock drew zigzags, diamonds and rosettes. After that period, rock churches were dug and richly decorated with brightly coloured figures. The paper adds that the pigments came from the rock and soil of the area.
Tuff is prone to erosion and decay. The paper names salt crystallisation as the leading environmental cause. The paper’s crack survey leads past a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Churches on slope edges are damaged by their position. UNESCO adds that the register of monuments lists more than two hundred individual rock-hewn churches, frescoed ones among them.
What shapes the fairy chimneys of Pasabag, as described along a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour?
Hard cap rock over soft volcanic ash shapes the chimneys of Pasabag. Rain and snowmelt then widen the gaps between them, as described along a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Chimneys keep their hats of harder stone for a limited time.
The ground at Pasabag began as volcanic ash. Eruptions laid down stacked sheets of ignimbrite, a rock that forms when hot ash particles weld together. Tuff is the plain name for consolidated volcanic ash, and it is a relatively soft stone. The large calderas that fed the sheets lie buried.
At Pasabag each capped chimney has a cone of tuff and volcanic ash for a body. The hat is made of hard rock, so it lasts longer than the body below it. The valley is described along a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Chimneys stay upright only while their hats protect them.
Erosion starts on a gently sloping plateau of ignimbrite. Surface water finds minor faults and cuts the first channels. As the channels deepen, they reach lower layers that are softer and paler. Those layers wear away faster than the hard layer on top. The gaps between the future chimneys widen.
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Cappadocia has a continental climate, with sparse rainfall across a largely semi-arid region. A geological study adds that freezing and thawing cycles play an important role. It says rainfall and snowmelt add to the active erosion. Pasabag lies in this weather, as set out along a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Chimneys show the result.
Ignimbrite of the Zelve unit forms typical chimneys with two or three hats. The ministry text calls the forms at Pasabag multi-bodied and multi-headed. One chimney there has three heads. The valley was formerly called the Valley of the Priests. The official tourism site gives its other name as Monk’s Vineyard.
People shaped this soft stone too. The ministry text says humans carved these natural formations into chapels and living spaces. The official tourism site says the cones were hollowed from top to bottom, with rooms ten to fifteen metres high. This work is explained along a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Chimneys became chapels and rooms.
One three-headed chimney holds a chapel built in the name of Saint Simeon. A cell sits inside the same chimney. A narrow chimney-like tunnel leads to the cell entrance. Crosses decorate that entrance. The ministry text and the tourism site both describe the chapel and the cell.
The chapel is named for Saint Simeon, who lived near Aleppo in the fifth century. The ministry text says he later sought refuge on a column fifteen metres high. The story is told along a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Chimneys at Pasabag hold rooms. His column carried a platform believed to measure about one square metre.
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The Goreme National Park article places the earliest signs of monastic activity in Cappadocia in the fourth century. It ties those signs to small anchorite communities. Builders have used tuff since ancient times. A cone of tuff under a hard hat is therefore easy to hollow into rooms.
This route lists Pasabag, or Monks Valley, on day three. The valley lies about one kilometre off the Goreme to Avanos road, on the way to Zelve. Avanos stands on the Kizilirmak, the longest river of Turkey. The tourism site says Zelve, near this route, has the greatest concentration of fairy chimneys.
Hoodoo, tent rock and earth pyramid are other names for a fairy chimney. It is a thin spire of rock formed by erosion. Hoodoos range from human height to above ten storeys. The valley is described along a 7 day budget Istanbul Cappadocia Antalya tour. Chimneys are a typical product of the Cappadocian ignimbrites, says the IUGS heritage list.