Welcome to Turkey Istanbul Airport. Meet with TravelShop Booking staff and transfer to your hotel & check in. You will be given your room key and the rest of the day is yours to explore Istanbul. Overnight in Istanbul.

(Breakfast included)

Starting straight from the hotel (or the tour meeting point), you walk to the Hippodrome, centre of the sometimes gruesome history of Constantinople, where the chariot races which enthralled the population were held, and where Emperor Justinan’s great general Bellisarius massacred the people during the Nika riots. The Hippodrome is decorated with obelisks from ancient Egypt brought by Constantine to decorate his New Rome. 

Right on the hippodrome, you will visit the Blue Mosque, one of the finest examples of Ottoman building skills, the last great mosque of the classical period decorated with the blue tiles that give it it’s colloquial name. 

Continuing your tour of the great places of worship, cross the square to visit Hagia Sophia, the Byzantine Church built in 576 AD, which dwarfed all other buildings in the world for hundreds of years.

You will complete your day with a visit to the atmospheric Basilica Cisterns, built to ensure the huge city of Constantinople had enough water stored to withstand a long siege. This ancient cistern was only discovered recently and still supports the modern buildings built above it on its hundreds of classical columns. After the tour drop back to your hotel. Overnight in Istanbul.

(Breakfast included)

After breakfast pick up from your hotel and depart for Topkapi Palace, the sumptuous, but tastefully un-extravagant home of the Ottoman Sultans, and their private quarters know as the Harem, subject of much erotic fascination in the west.

After free time for lunch, take the tram down to Eminonu and look at Sirkeci station, the terminus of the Orient Express, and board one of the cruise boats which ply the historical Bosphorus, where Europe meets Asia, and where the Mediterranean meets the Black sea, viewing wooden mansions, castles and Ottoman Palaces, as well as the military hospital where Florence Nightingale famously worked. Overnight in Istanbul.

(Breakfast included)

After breakfast pick up from your hotel and transfer to Yenikapi Fast Ferry docks. Cross Sea of Marmara and get on train to Bergama. Crossing the marble sea on the comfortable catamaran we arrive in the port town of Bandirma. We then board the train and head via Balikesir to the mining town of Soma. In soma we will go by road, the short distance to Bergama. Overnight in Pergamon.

(Breakfast and Lunch included)

After breakfast pick up from your hotel and depart for Pergamon Tour. During the tour we will see charming town of Bergama to the foot of the Acropolis, here we board the cable car which takes ups to the top in grand style. At the Bergama Acropolis, there are spectacular views of the town below, in addition to the sights of the Acropolis, modelled to rival the Acropolis in Athens. We will visit in detail, the main theatre - the steepest in the ancient world ( There are a total of 3 theatres, 1 amphitheatre and 1 stadium in Pergamon!). The magnificent Temple of Trajan, built painstakingly on a vaulted terrace; The Library of Pergamon, where the books were made from Parchment, a trade dominated by the Pergamese. (The word Parchment is a corruption of the Latin ‘pergamenum’ and the French ‘parchemin’) During the building of the library here and the competing library of Alexandria, the demand for Papyrus became so high that papyrus became scarce, helping parchment production grow. We descend and visit the massive brick edifice known as the Red Basilica, an Egyptian temple to Isis and Serapis. This structure was actually built above the river and is placed on a double tunnel-like bridge, 196 meters wide. There is a connection from the temple to the tunnel below.

After lunch, we will visit the compact but interesting Bergama Archeology Museum. Boasting a small but impressive collection of artefacts, Bergama's museum is well worth a visit. On exhibit are reliefs from the Acropolis, including a wonderful Roman-era relief from the Demeter Terrace, and a Hellenistic frieze and architrave from the Athena Terrace. Also impressive are the many statues from the Asklepion and a mosaic floor featuring Medusa's head that was originally in the Lower Agora. 

Early evening we depart by car, back to Soma Station. From there the train to Manisa, then change to the train for Salihli near Sardis. Overnight in Salihli.

(Breakfast and lunch included)

After breakfast pick up from your hotel and have a short drive to Sardis. Sardis is set below unusual red sandstone cliffs, on the banks of the Pactolus, where Mythical King Midas washed away the Midas touch. The stream was definitely generous in terms of gold, as evidenced by the gold working workshops beside the stream and the reputed wealth of Sardis in ancient times. The term ‘Rich as Croesus’ was coined after the King of the Lydians who reigned here. It is known that the first coins were struck here, therefore Sardis can claim to be the birthplace of commerce. We will visit the impressive Temple of Artemis, before walking down to via the Gold workshops to the site of the synagogue, before we view the beautifully reconstructed Gymnasium. 

After we have enjoyed the site we will head back to Salihli and then take the evening train to Izmir. Overnight in Izmir. 

(Breakfast and Lunch included)

After breakfast, you will visit the site of the Marketplace, famous Local Bazaar Kemeralti. Mid-morning we will get on the train to Selcuk, and from there visit the sites of Ephesus. Here in one of the world's most visited ancient cities, you will visit the newly excavated Terrace Houses, a complex of luxury Roman dwellings with mosaics and frescoes in situ. From here you will visit the Library of Celcus, then the impressively sized theatre. A look at the well-preserved latrines gives you an insight into daily life. Walking down the Arcadian Way towards the silted harbour, we can also look at the well-preserved basilica with baptistery attached.

We will walk back to Selcuk via the site of Ephesus’s Temple of Artemis. This temple which is largely lost was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. After the tour transfer to your hotel. Overnight in Kusadasi.

(Breakfast and Lunch included)

Going by road today we will visit first Priene, known as the Pompeii of Asia Minor, this city is the prime example of town planning in the ancient world, with its perfect grid system behind well-defended city walls. The city was abandoned suddenly without being used by subsequent civilisations, and for this reason, there is little building after the original town was built, giving us a privileged view of the order of ancient towns in their prime.

​Miletus was one of the richest Greek cities of the area and was thought to have as many as 30 trading colonies spread across the Mediterranean basin. A fine theatre and well-preserved bathhouse welcome you to this site, which also housed a famous monument to Pompey the Great who cleansed the area of pirates, making life much easier for the trading peoples who lived here.

​Heading along the coast we arrive at Didim, site of the Temple of Apollo, Didyma. This enormous temple was the sanctuary of Miletus, site of a sacred spring where the priestess of Apollo would give prophecy, and next to Delphi, was the most important oracular site in the ancient world. The Persians burned the Temple and it lay in ruins until Alexander the Great reinstituted the Oracle and building started in 300BC. The massive temple was still being completed in 300AD, 600 years later, when Christianity stopped the final completion. Aftre the tour drop back to your hotel. Overnight Kusadasi.

(Breakfast and lunch included)

After breakfast transfer to to train station and take the morning train up the Meander valley, you will visit the unique UNESCO site of Pamukkale/ Hieropolis. Taking your shoes off, you will walk from your hotel up through the white pools and frozen waterfalls of this ‘one in the world’ natural phenomenon. The evaporation of thousands of years of mineral-rich waters has left this gleaming white monument to nature’s variety. You can bathe in the ‘travertine’ pools or in the deep sparkling waters of Cleopatras Bath.  After this, you will walk around the extensive site of Hierapolis, the Phrygian/ Roman city which was built above, and because of the spring waters here. The Ancient Theatre is one of the finest in anywhere, the Necropolis is one of the largest and most varied ( try to find the tomb of the engineer-inventor of the crank and rod mechanism). Visit the place where Phillip the Apostle was martyred. After the tour transfer to your hotel. Overnight Pamukkale.

(Breakfast included)

After breakfast transfer to Denizli Train Station from where you will take the train to Izmir Airport for your flight back home. We hope your tour was a memorable one and we would like to see you in the future in one of our tours again. Have a nice trip back home and thanks for choosing TravelShop Booking.