Turkey 14-Day Luxury Private Tour

Welcome to Turkey. A private driver meets you at Istanbul Airport and takes you to your hotel. There is nothing to do today but settle in, so rest, unpack and let the long flight fade. If you would like a little air before dinner, the streets around your hotel are full of small cafés and bakeries, and the view over the water at dusk is a lovely first impression of the city. Your guide will be in touch to confirm the plans for tomorrow.

With your guide, spend the morning among the monuments of Sultanahmet. Under the great dome of Hagia Sophia, gold mosaics of emperors and saints look down on Ottoman medallions bearing the names of the caliphs. A few steps away, the six minarets of the Blue Mosque frame a courtyard of perfect symmetry, and the visit is timed around prayer. The Basilica Cistern, lit softly beneath the street, ends the morning. Lunch is at your leisure, and the afternoon is free.

This morning belongs to Topkapi Palace, where the Ottoman sultans lived and ruled for centuries. Your guide leads you through its courtyards, kitchens and treasury, and into the Harem, before you pause on the terrace above the meeting of the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus. Topkapi is closed on Tuesdays, so the days are arranged around it. In the afternoon a private boat takes you along the strait, past palaces, mosques and old summer mansions on both shores.

A relaxed start, then a flight of about an hour and a half to Kayseri or Nevşehir in central Anatolia. Your driver meets you and the landscape soon turns into the curving valleys and rock towers Cappadocia is known for. Check in to your cave hotel or valley-view hotel, about an hour from the airport, and take the afternoon gently. Dinner is included tonight. If the evening is clear, the stars above the valleys are remarkable.

Wake early for your balloon flight, weather permitting, and drift above Cappadocia as the first light reaches the rock. Once back on the ground, return to the hotel for breakfast and a rest. Later in the morning your guide takes you to the Göreme Open Air Museum, where small chapels cut into the cliffs hold some of the finest Byzantine frescoes in Turkey. The rest of the day is quiet.

Drive about 40 minutes to one of Cappadocia’s underground cities, Derinkuyu or Kaymaklı, where tunnels lead down through several levels of living rooms, storerooms and chapels hidden deep under the plateau. Your guide adjusts the visit to your comfort in the lower passages. On the way back, stop at Uchisar Castle for a last wide view of the valleys, then spend a free afternoon at the hotel.

Fly west this morning from Kayseri to Izmir, about an hour and a half. Your driver meets you and heads south toward Selçuk, stopping in the hill village of Şirince, with its red-tiled houses, for a long lunch at your own pace. Continue to the coast near Kuşadası, about twenty minutes further, and check in by the sea. Dinner is included this evening.

Arrive at Ephesus with your guide as the gates open and the stone is still cool. Walk the length of the ancient city, from the upper agora down the marble street to the Library of Celsus, and visit the terrace houses, where wealthy Romans lived among mosaics and frescoes. The visit ends at the theater. Back at your hotel by lunchtime, enjoy a free afternoon by the pool or the Aegean.

Leave the coast after breakfast and drive about three hours inland along the fertile Meander valley, stopping for lunch on the way. Reach Pamukkale in the afternoon and rest at your hotel. When the heat eases, walk barefoot across the white terraces, where warm, mineral-rich water fills shallow pools, and stay for the sunset over the plain. Dinner is included tonight.

In the morning light, visit Hierapolis above the terraces with your guide: its Roman theater, its gateways and its long necropolis. You can also swim in the warm Antique Pool among fallen marble columns (it has its own small fee). Then drive south, about three and a half hours with a lunch stop, as the hills turn green with pine and the sea comes into view near Fethiye. Dinner is included tonight at your coastal hotel.

Today is yours. Sleep late, swim from your hotel, or simply read in the shade of the pines. If you would like to see the coast from the water, we can arrange a private boat for the day around the islands of the Gulf of Fethiye or along the cliffs to Butterfly Valley, a small beach reached only by sea. Evenings here are made for long dinners on a terrace above the bay.

Drive about an hour and a quarter east with your guide to Xanthos, once the capital of ancient Lycia, where tall pillar tombs and a Roman theater stand above the Eşen valley. Continue a short way to Patara, the birthplace of St. Nicholas, with its restored assembly hall and one of the longest beaches in Turkey, backed by sand dunes. Bring a swimsuit for the afternoon before the drive back to your hotel.

After a slow breakfast, visit Kayaköy, a hillside of roofless stone houses and chapels left empty since 1923, with your guide. It is a quiet, moving place and an easy walk. Continue down to Ölüdeniz to look out over its famous lagoon, then return to your hotel for a last free afternoon by the sea and a farewell evening on the coast.

Enjoy a final breakfast and, if your flight allows, one more swim. At the agreed time your driver takes you to Dalaman Airport, about an hour away, for the included flight to Istanbul, where you connect to your flight home; if you fly home directly from Dalaman, we simply adjust the timing. With an afternoon flight, the road passes close to Dalyan, where Lycian tombs are carved into the cliffs above the river, and a short stop to see them is easy to arrange.