The 10 Best Travel Experiences in Turkey

Cappadocia in central Turkey is a landscape of extraordinary volcanic rock formations called fairy chimneys — tall, thin spires of soft volcanic tuff capped with harder basalt.

Thousands of years of habitation have added cave churches with Byzantine frescoes, underground cities, and rock-cut monasteries to an already extraordinary natural canvas.

One of the world's oldest and largest covered markets, Istanbul's Grand Bazaar has traded continuously since 1461 across more than 4,000 shops lining 60 vaulted, hand-painted streets.

Copper lanterns, hand-woven carpets, gold jewellery and spice stalls spill into each other beneath domed ceilings that have survived earthquakes and fires for over five centuries.

Nearly 1,500 years old, this Byzantine cathedral-turned-mosque carries a vast dome that dominated the ancient world's skyline for centuries.

Gold mosaics of Christian saints sit alongside Islamic calligraphy inside, a rare visible record of the building's several religious lives.

Dozens of windows ringing the dome's base light the vast interior.

Ephesus is one of the best-preserved ancient cities in the Mediterranean, its marble streets lined with the two-storey facade of the Library of Celsus, a restored amphitheatre that once seated 25,000, and the remains of temples, baths, and terraced houses.

Founded as a Greek colony and later a major Roman port, it gives a more complete sense of ancient urban life than almost any other ruin still standing today.

Brilliant white calcium travertine terraces cascade down a hillside, filled with warm mineral pools that have drawn bathers since Roman times.

The ruins of ancient Hierapolis sit atop the terraces, combining ancient history with an otherworldly natural spa.

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque, universally known as the Blue Mosque for its Iznik tile-clad interior, is Istanbul's most iconic building.

Completed in 1616, it is the only mosque in Turkey with six minarets and its cascading domes and slender minarets form one of the world's most beautiful skylines.

Ölüdeniz's Blue Lagoon is a sheltered curve of turquoise water pinched off from the open Mediterranean by a long sand spit, backed by pine-covered mountains rising straight from the shore.

It's one of Turkey's most photographed beaches and also its paragliding capital — hundreds of tandem flights launch daily from Babadağ mountain and drift down over the bay.

The beach itself is calm and shallow, better for swimming than surf.

At the 2,100-metre summit of Mount Nemrut, a first-century BC king built himself a burial sanctuary flanked by colossal stone heads of gods and eagles, toppled from their bodies by centuries of earthquakes but still staring out over the Anatolian plateau.

Visitors climb the last stretch before dawn to watch sunrise light hit the eastern terrace's statues one by one.

The Ottoman court's headquarters for four centuries, spread across four courtyards on the point where the Bosphorus meets the Golden Horn.

The Imperial Hall and the tiled chambers of the Harem are the visual highlights; the treasury holds the Topkapi dagger and the Spoonmaker's Diamond.

The terraces give the best free view of the strait.

A boat trip up the Bosphorus is the easiest way to see how Istanbul straddles two continents, passing Ottoman waterfront palaces, fortified castles, and the suspension bridges linking Europe and Asia.

Ferries run the full length from the old city to the mouth of the Black Sea, or shorter tourist cruises loop back after a couple of hours — either way, it's a relaxed, scenic break from the city's crowded streets and hills.