Turkey tour highlights
I decided to signup for a group tour in Turkey for a few reasons:
1) I was tired of travel planning for 1.5 months already
2) Read that a lot of tourist facilities in Turkey are still closed for the season in April
3) Meet other people
It turns out that #2 is actually not true, in fact I had problems getting a hotel reservation for the end of April in Istanbul (seemed 80% of hotels were booked up a week out). But #1 and #3 made the tour well worth it, plus we had a great guide who gave a lot of historical and cultural background, and that's something you don't get when traveling on your own.
The tour I took was an 8-day "Best of Turkey" tour from GAP Adventures. I don't think I really had an idea of where we were going - I just wanted to see some parts of Turkey outside of Istanbul. There was a lot of time spent in the bus in order to see everything, but we actually got a private bus most of the way, until we took the public bus back to Istanbul.
We first drove to Gallipoli, then took the ferry over to Canakkale from where we visited Troy. We proceeded down the Aegean coast to Ayvalik, where we relaxed for a while before heading to Selcuk, our base to tour the ancient city of Ephesus. Our last stop was Pamukkale, where we saw the amazing travertine terraces, and more amazingly on top of the terraces are the ruins of the ancient city Hieropolis!
The sights were all very nice, but for me the two highlights were activities that weren't even listed on the itinerary, and I think work best when you're traveling with a group with a guide.
The first was a visit to a local hamam in Selcuk. This was my first time in one, and the procedure is to first change out of your clothes and put on the plastic sandals (they are very particular about wearing these around!) and the cloth (pestemal) to wrap yourself in. Then you rinse yourself in the big marble steam room, and lie down on the big circular "navel stone" in the middle. Our hamam experience included being scrubbed down by one attendant, then lathered up and massaged in soap by another. Finally, you take a cold shower, and sit in the reception area bundled up in towels sipping apple tea. Thankfully our guide joined us and could tell us where to go and when!
The second highlight was relaxing with the group and a few different nargile (water pipes, or hookahs as we call them in the US). I was so amazed that there was no smokiness to the smoke: it felt like breathing out air perfumed with, in our case, strawberry, melon, and mint. Definitely not something I would do on my own, it was a lot of fun with the group.
