Multi-day tour
Turkey by air: Istanbul, Cappadocia, Ephesus and Pamukkale
The country’s four icons linked by domestic flights, with no long road legs: private service in Istanbul and shared services in Cappadocia, Ephesus and Pamukkale.
Private, tailor-made The vehicle and the guide are for your passengers only, and you choose the starting day.
Key facts
- Duration 8 days / 7 nights
- Route Istanbul → Pamukkale 5 destinations
- Quotation Quotation within 24 business hours (72 business hours for groups and MICE)
- Recommended months April–June, September, October
- Departure type Private, tailor-made
The two-storey façade of the Library of Celsus at Ephesus, seen from below: one of the stages the circuit links by domestic flight.
Overview
An eight-day, seven-night circuit that takes in Istanbul, Cappadocia, Ephesus and Pamukkale, linking them by air so that the distances do not eat into sightseeing days. It is a mixed programme by design: in Istanbul the service is private, with a car and guide for your group, while in Cappadocia, Ephesus and Pamukkale it uses the regular tours in shared service with other passengers, which is what keeps the pace of the itinerary.
The start date is the agency’s to choose: the programme has no fixed weekday and is built around the date you give. Included are the domestic flights in the itinerary, accommodation with breakfast, the arrival and departure transfers and the airport-to-hotel transfers in each destination, the entrance fees for the sites listed and two dinners at the hotel in Cappadocia.
There is also a short version, which closes after the Bosphorus day and does not include Ephesus or Pamukkale. The balloon flight and the Turkish night are optional and booked separately.
The start date is the agency’s to choose: the programme has no fixed weekday and is built around the date you give. Included are the domestic flights in the itinerary, accommodation with breakfast, the arrival and departure transfers and the airport-to-hotel transfers in each destination, the entrance fees for the sites listed and two dinners at the hotel in Cappadocia.
There is also a short version, which closes after the Bosphorus day and does not include Ephesus or Pamukkale. The balloon flight and the Turkish night are optional and booked separately.
Route: IstanbulCappadociaİzmirEphesusPamukkale
- Physical level: Moderate
- Languages of the guided visits: Spanish, English
Highlights
- Four destinations linked by included domestic flights, with no long road legs.
- Istanbul with private car and guide: Sultanahmet, the Basilica Cistern, the Bosphorus and the Spice Market.
- Cappadocia over two full days: Kaymaklı, Uçhisar, Avanos, Paşabağ and the Göreme Open-Air Museum.
- Ephesus in full and the House of the Virgin Mary, with the entrance fees included.
- The Pamukkale travertines and Hierapolis in a single morning.
- Two included dinners at the hotel in Cappadocia, and a short version without the Aegean leg.
What is included and what is not
Included
- 7 nights’ accommodation with breakfast at the hotels listed: 3 nights in Istanbul, 3 in Cappadocia and 1 on the Aegean coast.
- The domestic flights in the itinerary, economy class: Istanbul – Cappadocia, Cappadocia – Istanbul, Istanbul – İzmir and İzmir – Istanbul (two legs on the short version).
- A licensed Spanish- or English-speaking guide on the programme’s visits.
- Private arrival and departure transfers and airport – hotel transfers in each destination.
- Private car with driver in Istanbul and shared service with other passengers in Cappadocia, Ephesus and Pamukkale.
- Entrance fees to the sites listed in the itinerary: Basilica Cistern, Kaymaklı underground city, Göreme Open-Air Museum, Uçhisar castle, Ephesus, the House of the Virgin Mary, and Hierapolis and Pamukkale.
- 2 dinners at the hotel in Cappadocia, on days 3 and 4.
Not included
- International air tickets (home country – Istanbul – home country).
- Lunches: not included on any day. Dinners not stated as included.
- All drinks, with and outside meals.
- Hot-air balloon flight in Cappadocia: an optional activity, booked separately and subject to each morning’s weather clearance.
- Turkish night in a cave restaurant: an optional activity, on request.
- Other optional visits and entrance fees not listed in the itinerary.
- Personal expenses (shopping, minibar, laundry, room service).
- Tips for the guide, the driver and hotel and restaurant staff.
- Visa fees and visa handling services, if required.
- Travel and health insurance (recommended).
- Any service not expressly mentioned as included.
Day by day itinerary
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Day 1
Arrival in Istanbul
Arrival at Istanbul airport and meeting with our representative in the arrivals hall, holding the group’s sign. Private transfer to the hotel and check-in. The drive takes between forty minutes and an hour and a half depending on the airport of arrival and the time of day, because both are a long way from the centre and Istanbul traffic changes a great deal from one part of the day to another. Depending on the flight time, the rest of the day is free: if you arrive in the morning there is time for a first walk around the hotel’s neighbourhood and to get your bearings on the map of the city, which is more useful than it sounds when a city has two shores and three peninsulas, and if you arrive at night the sensible thing is to rest, because the next day starts early and ends on a flight. The guide gets in touch with the group to confirm the departure time on day 2 and to settle the usual practical questions: how the transport card works, where to change money and what to wear to enter the mosques. Night in Istanbul. -
Day 2
Classic Istanbul and flight to Cappadocia
A day in the historic district of Sultanahmet, with private car and guide, starting early to get ahead of the coach groups. We start at the Roman Hippodrome, the long square that still holds the Egyptian obelisk and the serpent column, and from there move on to the Blue Mosque, with its İznik tiles, and to Hagia Sophia. Next we go down into the Basilica Cistern, the Roman reservoir of reused columns that holds up the square: a short visit, about thirty minutes, cool in summer and on walkways above the water. The day closes at the Grand Bazaar, with free time to eat on your own and to look through the passages of carpets, copperwork and jewellery, best explored with the guide in sight because the maze has more than sixty streets. Distances in Sultanahmet are short and part of the route is done on foot or by public transport, which also avoids the traffic restrictions of the old city. In the middle of the afternoon, transfer to the airport and the flight to Cappadocia, an hour and a quarter. Welcome on arrival and transfer to the hotel.Notes for the day: In Istanbul part of the route may be done on foot and by public transport, depending on traffic.
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Day 3
Cappadocia, the green route
The first full day in Cappadocia, in shared service with other passengers, with the pick-up time confirmed the previous afternoon. It opens with the Göreme panorama, the viewpoint from which you grasp at once how erosion has worked the volcanic ash, and goes on to the underground city of Kaymaklı, cut on several levels and used as a refuge: the corridors are narrow and low and you stoop in places, so anyone claustrophobic can wait above with the rest of the group. Then the visit to a family living in a fairy chimney, the stop that best explains everyday life in the rock, and an onyx workshop, where you watch the stone being cut and worked. The day closes at Pigeon Valley, with its dovecotes opened in the cliff face and, from the viewpoint, the castle of Uçhisar in the distance. Anyone who wants the balloon flight takes it at dawn, before this day begins: it is an optional activity, booked separately and subject to each morning’s weather clearance. Dinner included at the hotel.Optional activities
- Balloon flight at dawn over the valleys of Cappadocia
Notes for the day: This day runs in shared service with other passengers.
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Day 4
Cappadocia, the red route
A second day in Cappadocia, again in shared service. We climb Uçhisar castle, the honeycombed crag that commands the district and from which, on clear days, you can see Mount Erciyes and much of the valleys. Then Devrent Valley, known as the valley of imagination because erosion has left silhouettes each visitor reads differently, and Love Valley, of tall, slender chimneys. At Avanos, on the banks of the Kızılırmak, we visit a pottery workshop, a local trade since Hittite times, and you can try the wheel. The day ends at Paşabağ, the valley of the multi-capped chimneys with the hermitage of St Simeon cut into one of them, and at the Göreme Open-Air Museum, the group of rock-cut monastic churches with Byzantine frescoes that is a World Heritage Site. Dinner included at the hotel. In the evening, anyone who wishes can add the Turkish night in a cave restaurant, which is optional and arranged on request.Optional activities
- Turkish night in a cave restaurant, with folk dancing
Notes for the day: This day runs in shared service with other passengers. Photographing the frescoes inside the churches of the Göreme Open-Air Museum is forbidden.
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Day 5
Flight to Istanbul and the Bosphorus
Transfer to Cappadocia airport and the flight back to Istanbul, an hour and a quarter. The day’s programme follows the confirmed flight time, so the cruise may fall at midday or in the middle of the afternoon. Once in the city, a Bosphorus cruise: an hour and a half to two hours on the water between the two shores, with the palaces of Dolmabahçe and Beylerbeyi, the fortresses of Rumeli and Anadolu, the villages of wooden houses and both bridges seen from below, which is how the scale of the strait makes sense. It is worth bringing a layer, because there is always a breeze on the water, even in summer. Then a visit to the Spice Market in Eminönü, with its heaps of saffron, dried fruit, apple tea and Turkish delight, and free time in the area, which is the best one for shopping before the journey home and where the coffee and sweet shops are concentrated. On the short version of the programme, departure is the day after this one, and the Ephesus and Pamukkale legs are not done.Notes for the day: On the short version of the programme, departure takes place the day after this one.
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Day 6
Flight to İzmir and Ephesus
Transfer to the airport and the flight to İzmir, an hour and ten minutes. From there, in shared service, we visit the ancient city of Ephesus, one of the best preserved in the eastern Mediterranean: you go in through the upper gate and walk down Curetes Street with its marble paving, past the baths, the public latrines, the temple of Hadrian and the houses of the élite, as far as the Library of Celsus, the most photographed façade in the country. The odeon is nearby and, at the end of the route, the great theatre of twenty-four thousand seats where, according to the Acts of the Apostles, St Paul preached. The walk is two to three hours, in the open with little shade, downhill for most of it and over polished marble, which is slippery in the rain. Afterwards we go up Mount Bülbül to visit the House of the Virgin Mary, the stone house tradition points to as her last home and which is today a place of pilgrimage, with a spring and a wall of written petitions by the exit. Accommodation on the Aegean coast. This day exists only on the long version of the programme.Notes for the day: Long version only. The night may be in Kuşadası or in Pamukkale, depending on the day’s operation; the confirmed hotel is stated in the quote.
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Day 7
Pamukkale, Hierapolis and the flight to Istanbul
A day at Pamukkale, the cotton castle: the white travertine terraces the thermal water has built up on the hillside over millennia, and above them the ancient city of Hierapolis, with its great necropolis — one of the largest in Anatolia — the Frontinus arch, the baths now turned into a museum and the Roman theatre, which keeps its decorated stage building. The terraces are walked barefoot by rule of the site and the surface is uneven and slippery in places, so it is worth bringing a bag for your shoes, a small towel and taking it slowly; the water runs warm and is ankle-deep in the pools. The visit takes up much of the morning, two to three hours including the climb. Afterwards, transfer to İzmir airport, some one hundred and ninety kilometres away by road, and the flight back to Istanbul, an hour and ten minutes; the time you leave the site is worked out from that drive. Night in Istanbul. This day exists only on the long version of the programme.Notes for the day: Long version only. It is about 190 km by road from the Pamukkale site to İzmir airport, which governs the flight time.
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Day 8
Departure
Breakfast at the hotel and free time until the transfer, whose time is worked out from your international flight and from the traffic to be expected between the hotel and the airport: in Istanbul it is best to leave a wide margin, because both airports are far from the centre and journey times vary a great deal by hour. If the morning is free, the hotel’s neighbourhood is enough for a last walk or for any shopping still outstanding, and luggage can be left at the desk after check-out, which in most hotels is at midday. Private transfer to the airport and assistance as far as the check-in area, where our service ends. If your flight leaves very early or very late, we can add another night in Istanbul or a late check-out at the hotel; say so when requesting the quote so it can be costed with the programme. End of our services.
Expected hotels
| City | Nights | Category | Hotel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Istanbul | 3 | 4* / 5* | Nippon Hotel Taksim · Elite World Hotel Taksim · Taksim Gönen Hotel · Ramada by Wyndham Hotel Taksim · Point Hotel · Ramada Grand Bazaar Laleli · Byzantium Hotel · 10 Karaköyor similar |
| Cappadocia | 3 | 4* / 5* | Suhan Hotel · Avrasya Hotel · Sinasos Hotel · Ramada by Wyndham Hotel Cappadocia · Crowne Plaza Cappadocia · DoubleTree by Hilton Avanos · Remus & Romulus Uçhisar · Temenni Evi · Yunak Evlerior similar |
| Kuşadası | 1 | 4* |
Hotels as listed or similar; the final confirmation is given in the quotation.
How the rate is calculated
Rate tailored to the season, the hotel category and the number of travellers. Request a quotation.
Departures
Private, tailor-made
The vehicle and the guide are for your passengers only, and you choose the starting day.
The exact dates of each departure are confirmed in the quotation, together with hotel and domestic-flight availability.
Operational notes
- The order of the visits may change according to opening hours, traffic and the day’s operation. The content of the programme stays the same.
- The Cappadocia, Ephesus and Pamukkale days run in shared service with other passengers: the pick-up time and the group’s language are confirmed the previous afternoon. In Istanbul the service is private.
- Domestic flights are issued in economy class and the checked and cabin baggage allowance depends on the airline and the fare issued; the exact allowance is shown on the ticket. Schedules may be rearranged and the day’s programme follows the confirmed flight.
- Hagia Sophia is a working mosque. Foreign visitors follow a dedicated tourist route along the upper galleries, which is suspended during the five daily prayers and, on Friday at midday, for a longer period. The visiting rules and hours depend on current regulations and may change without notice; if access is restricted on the day of the visit, the monument is explained from outside.
- To enter mosques, shoes must be removed and shoulders and knees covered; women must cover their hair. At the House of the Virgin Mary the same discretion in dress is requested, with silence during services.
- The Pamukkale travertine terraces are walked barefoot by rule of the site, on ground that is uneven and slippery in places. Photographing the frescoes inside the churches of the Göreme Open-Air Museum is forbidden; the Dark Church has a separate ticket and is not included.
- The Kaymaklı underground city has narrow, low corridors that in places are walked bent over. Anyone who prefers not to go down can wait at the surface with the rest of the group.
- The balloon flight in Cappadocia is optional, booked in advance and subject to each morning’s weather clearance; when the flight is not authorised, the amount is refunded or a second attempt is made if the programme allows.
- Museums and sites may have a weekly closing day and different summer and winter hours. The final itinerary follows the opening calendar in force on the dates of travel.
- During the religious holidays (Ramazan Bayramı and Kurban Bayramı, whose dates move because they follow the lunar calendar) museum and shop hours change, the monuments are busier and domestic flights and roads fill up.
- A valid passport, the visa or electronic authorisation and compliance with entry requirements are the traveller’s responsibility. They should be checked in advance, as they depend on nationality.
Best time to travel
Recommended months: April, May, June, September, October
Spring and autumn are the best seasons for this itinerary: mild temperatures in Istanbul, good visibility in Cappadocia and bearable heat at Ephesus and Pamukkale, which are open-air visits with little shade. In July and August the inland Aegean frequently exceeds 35 °C at midday and those visits are moved to first thing. In winter the programme runs normally, with shorter days, possible snow in Cappadocia and more balloon cancellations because of wind.
Gallery
Frequently asked questions
Which part of the programme is private and which is shared?
In Istanbul the service is private: car, driver and guide for your group. In Cappadocia, Ephesus and Pamukkale the regular tours are used, in a vehicle shared with other passengers and with a licensed guide. If you would rather the whole circuit were private, say so and it is quoted separately.
How many domestic flights are there and are they included?
The long version has four included legs: Istanbul – Cappadocia, Cappadocia – Istanbul, Istanbul – İzmir and İzmir – Istanbul. The short version has two, the Cappadocia ones. They are issued in economy class and the baggage allowance depends on the airline and the fare; it is shown on the ticket.
What is the difference from the short version?
The short version ends the day after the Bosphorus day and does not include Ephesus or Pamukkale, so it stays in Istanbul and Cappadocia. The long one adds the two Aegean legs with their two flights.
Is the balloon flight included?
No. It is an optional activity booked separately, flown at dawn and subject to each morning’s weather clearance, so it can be cancelled for safety up to the last moment. It is worth booking with the programme because demand is high.
And the Turkish night?
Also optional, on request. It is held in a typical cave restaurant in Cappadocia, with folk dancing, and the transfers go with the activity.
Can it start on any day of the week?
Yes. It is a private programme with no fixed weekday: the itinerary is built around the start date your agency gives, and the domestic flights are confirmed against that date.
What level of fitness does it require?
Moderate. Ephesus and Pamukkale are open-air walks of two to three hours over uneven ground; the Kaymaklı underground city has low, narrow corridors, and the Pamukkale terraces are walked barefoot. If anyone travelling has reduced mobility, mention it when requesting the quote.
How is it requested?
With approximate dates, the number of passengers and the hotel category required, through the quote form. Agencies receive net rates.
Booking conditions
- Deposit
- 30% of the total when the booking is confirmed. For bookings made 30 days or less before departure, the full amount at confirmation.
- Balance
- The remaining 70%, no later than 31 days before departure.
- Payment methods
- Bank transfer or credit card. Card payments carry a 3% surcharge; charges applied by the issuing bank are borne by the client.
- Cancellations
- More than 90 days before departure: handling fee only, plus penalties on services already issued · 89–61 days: 25% · 60–31 days: 50% · 30 days or less and no-show: 100%. Reductions in places follow the same scale. Refunds within 10–14 business days of written cancellation.
Credentials
- Legal name
- Colorido Tours Turkey Turizm Ticaret Ltd. Şti.
- TÜRSAB licence
- A-12116
- Office
- Istanbul
- Operating scope
- Turkey only. Egypt, Jordan and the Greek islands only as extensions of a Turkey itinerary.
- Guides
- Licensed guides in Spanish and English
- 24/7 emergency line during the trip
- +90 544 533 53 55
- Who handles your request
- Your request is handled by our reservations team, and the same person follows the file from quotation through to operation on the ground.
