Tours in Türkiye

Turkey is large enough that the parts of it have little in common. Istanbul sits at the top, straddling the Bosphorus with one foot in Europe and one in Asia, and holds more visitors than the rest of the country combined. The Mediterranean south is the beach half: Antalya at its centre, with Side, Belek, Alanya and Kemer strung along the coast and the Taurus mountains rising immediately behind them. The Aegean side, around Bodrum and Kusadasi, is quieter, windier and closer to the classical ruins at Ephesus. In the middle of Anatolia, four hundred kilometres from any sea, Cappadocia is a plateau of soft volcanic rock carved into valleys, fairy chimneys and underground cities, with Goreme, Nevsehir and Urgup as its bases. Inland to the west, Pamukkale's white travertine terraces sit below the ruins of Hierapolis. Ankara is the capital and almost nobody's holiday.

What people come for splits along those lines. Istanbul is history stacked in layers — Byzantine, Ottoman and modern in the same street — plus food, bazaars and the Bosphorus itself, which is a working waterway rather than a view. Cappadocia is the balloons at first light, and then the same landscape at ground level on horseback, quad bikes or on foot through the valleys. The southern coast is boats, water parks, ancient cities and the canyons behind the resorts, where the rafting runs from spring into November. Everywhere there is the food, which changes completely between regions, and the hammam, which is worth doing once properly rather than in a hotel basement.

The offer here is unusually wide at both ends. Self-guided phone routes through Istanbul cost the price of a coffee; a shared minibus day tour of Cappadocia's valleys costs about what a good dinner does; a private guide with a car doubles or triples that; and at the top sit the balloon flights, private yachts on the Bosphorus and helicopter circuits over the city. The gap is mostly group size and whether a driver waits for you.

Practical. The country runs two different climates: the coasts are hot and dry from June to September and mild in winter, while central Anatolia is high, dry and genuinely cold from December to March — Cappadocia in snow is beautiful and freezing. Spring and autumn suit both. Domestic flights are the sensible way to cross the country and cost less than the same distance by road anywhere in Europe. Prices are quoted in euros or dollars by most operators because the lira moves too fast to price a season in it; cash in lira is still better in markets, where the first price is a starting position. Tipping is around ten per cent in restaurants and a note for a guide or driver. Working mosques pause visits around each of the five daily prayers and for longer on Friday around midday; dress covers shoulders and knees, women are handed a scarf at the door, and shoes come off. During Ramadan many kitchens stop serving in daylight while the evening meal becomes the best of the year.