Turkey is one of the few countries that genuinely has everything a traveller might be after — a world city, Greek and Roman ruins on the scale of Italy’s, an extraordinary landscape in the middle, a long warm coastline, and food that stands with anywhere.
It is also large. Istanbul to the Lycian coast is a thousand kilometres, and the way to make two weeks work is to fly the long legs and bus the short ones.
Days 1–4: Istanbul
Four nights, and it is not enough, and that is the compromise.
Sultanahmet for the obvious: Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, Topkapı, the Basilica Cistern. Go at opening; by ten these are queues.
The Grand Bazaar and Spice Bazaar, then out of them — the streets between the Spice Bazaar and the Golden Horn are where people actually shop.
Cross to Beyoğlu — Galata Tower, İstiklal, and the meyhanes of Asmalımescit for rakı and meze, which is an evening rather than a meal.
Cross to Asia. Take the ferry to Kadıköy, which is where Istanbul eats and drinks and where almost no first-time visitor goes. The market, Moda’s waterfront, and the walk along the Bosphorus.
A Bosphorus ferry to the upper villages — Bebek, Rumeli Hisarı, Anadolu Kavağı — for a couple of pounds, which is the best-value thing in the city.
Days 5–7: Cappadocia
Fly to Kayseri or Nevşehir, about ninety minutes. Buses take twelve hours; do not.
Göreme as a base, staying in a cave hotel.
The balloon flight at dawn is the thing everybody comes for and it is worth it. It is also weather-dependent and cancelled often, which is the argument for having three nights rather than two — book the flight for the first morning so you have two more chances.
The Göreme Open-Air Museum for Byzantine rock-cut churches with frescoes. The Ihlara Valley for a walk along a river gorge with churches cut into the walls. Derinkuyu or Kaymaklı underground cities, which go down eight levels and held thousands of people.
The Red and Rose valleys on foot at sunset, which is free and better than any of the paid tours.
Days 8–10: Ephesus and Pamukkale
Fly to İzmir, then hire a car or take buses.
Ephesus is the best-preserved classical city in the eastern Mediterranean: the Library of Celsus, a theatre for 25,000, and the Terrace Houses, which require a separate ticket and are the single best thing on the site — Roman domestic interiors with mosaics and frescoes under a modern roof.
Go at opening or in the last two hours. Cruise groups arrive mid-morning.
Şirince, a hill village above it, for the night.
Pamukkale, two hours inland — white travertine terraces of calcium-laden hot water, which you walk barefoot, with the Roman city of Hierapolis on top of them. Sunset is the time.
Days 11–14: the Lycian coast
Drive or bus south to the Mediterranean.
Fethiye or Kaş as a base. Kaş is the better one: a small harbour town with Lycian rock tombs cut into the cliff above the streets.
The Lycian Way runs 540km along this coast and you can walk any of it. The section from Ölüdeniz to Faralya is a good day.
Kayaköy, an abandoned Greek village of 500 houses, emptied by the 1923 population exchange and left standing.
A gulet boat trip through the islands, one day or several.
Patara, an enormous ruined Lycian city behind an 18km beach that is a turtle nesting site and is almost empty.
Fly home from Dalaman or Antalya.
Practical
Domestic flights on Turkish Airlines, AJet and Pegasus are frequent and cheap, and they are what make this itinerary possible.
Buses between the coastal towns are comfortable, frequent and inexpensive.
A hire car for the Lycian section specifically, because the good places are between the bus stops.
Season: April–June and September–October. July and August on the coast is very hot and full; Cappadocia is hot in the day and cool at night year-round; Istanbul is pleasant in spring and autumn and bitter in January.
Currency: the lira has been volatile for years, which means prices quoted in older guides are meaningless and card payment is straightforward.
Dress for mosques: shoulders and knees covered for everyone, head covering for women, shoes off. Scarves are provided at the main ones.
Tea is offered constantly and refusing is fine but accepting is better.
Variations
If you would rather have coast than ruins, cut Ephesus and Pamukkale and give six days to the Lycian coast, walking sections of the Lycian Way between Kaş and Olympos.
If you would rather have history, cut the coast and add Ani on the Armenian border — a ruined Armenian capital of a thousand churches on a plateau — and the eastern cities. This is a different and much less visited Turkey and it needs its own fortnight.
If it is winter, Cappadocia in snow is extraordinary and half the price, Istanbul is quiet and cold, and the coast is closed.
What a fortnight leaves out
The Black Sea coast and its tea-growing mountains. The south-east: Mardin, Şanlıurfa, and Göbekli Tepe, which at around 11,500 years old is the oldest known monumental architecture anywhere and rewrote what archaeologists thought Neolithic societies could build. Lake Van. The whole Anatolian interior.
Turkey needs a month to feel unhurried and most people give it a week.