Gay Tours: Escorted vacation to Istanbul and Turkey for gay and lesbian travelers

TURKISH DELIGHT: Istanbul, Turquoise Coast & Cappadocia! October 16-26, 2008
	Day 1 -Thursday, October 16, 2008 Arrival into Istanbul under your own flight arrangements and transfer on your own to our hotel. If you’d like a private transfer from the airport to the hotel, please let us know and we’ll set that up for you. We’ll get together later in the day for our orientation and welcome drinks, followed by our welcome dinner with live music, wine, and local entertainment at a seafood restaurant in the vicinity of the Kumkap¦ Bal¦k Pazar — one of Istanbul’s busiest and best fish markets. The late evening (should you still have some energy!) is yours to enjoy some of Istanbul’s nightlife. Overnight Istanbul. Welcome drink and dinner included.

	Day 2 Istanbul! What a glorious wonder. It’s home to a layering of civilization upon civilization, of empire built on empire. It's grand, marvelous, and chaotic. A city that straddles Europe and Asia, Istanbul is a symbol of greatness, coveted for millennia. On our first full day here our morning explorations will take in Ayasofya, the Hippodrome, the Blue Mosque, the Basilica Cistern, and the Topkap¦ Palace. (Please see descriptions of these great sights further on in the itinerary.) We’ll have worked up a good appetite for lunch at this point, which we will enjoy on the grounds of the Topkap¦ Palace overlooking the Bosphorus Strait and the Sea of Marmara. Now amply re-fueled we’re ready to hit the Grand Bazaar (Covered Market). A chaotic labyrinth, it’s the heart of Istanbul and has been for centuries. With over 4,000 shops and several miles of lanes, as well as mosques, banks, police stations, restaurants, and workshops, the Grand Bazaar is a covered world. Yes, it’s a tourist trap, but it’s also a place where business deals are done between locals and import/export companies flourish. You’ve got to be in the right frame of mind: a good mood, energized, ready for some friendly banter – and some bargaining. It’s easy to spend a couple of hours here; some people spend a couple of days! Your evening is free to follow your own interests. There’s certainly no shortage of good restaurants, and there’s plenty of nightlife to explore – including the gay kind. Breakfast and lunch included.

	Day 3 This morning’s program will include some less-often visited sights like the Spice Bazaar, the Mosque of Rüstem Pasa, the Mosque of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent; and the Kariye Museum (Chora Church). Again, please refer to descriptions of these interesting sights further on. Lunch and your afternoon are free for shopping, relaxing, or perhaps you've been waiting to partake in that quintessential Turkish experience -- the traditional hamam (bath house)! In the evening we’ll reconvene for a special dinner on our last evening in Istanbul. Breakfast and dinner included.

	Day 4 We catch an early-morning flight out of Istanbul today and head south to the famed Turquoise Coast. Our base will be the town of Dalyan, with its gardens and willow trees, situated on the Dalyan River just a bit inland from the coast. We’ll enjoy an excursion by boat as we carve a path through the reed beds of the river on the way to the ruins of ancient Kaunos, founded around the 9th century BC. Above the river the facades of Lycian rock tombs gaze silently down on us. The curious wooden structures in the river are called dalyanlar and are used for catching fish. Beautiful Ïztuzu Beach is about 6 miles south of the town, and should you fancy a nice stroll on the beach, we can arrange that for you. Another option is the Sultaniye hot springs and mud baths about 7 miles north of town. Breakfast, lunch, dinner included.

	Day 5 Today we experience a stretch of the Lycian Way – considered one of the best long-distance hiking trails in the world. Many travelers do a multi-day trek on this famed route; we will just spend about 3 hours on a relatively non-strenuous portion of the trail, accompanied by an expert local guide. We start near the village of Kayaköy – actually a ghost town of some 2,000 stone houses. After World War I there was a large exchange of populations: Greek Muslims from Greece to Turkey and Ottoman Christians from Turkey to Greece. Since there were far more of the latter, many towns, like this one, were essentially deserted. It has been declared a historic monument by the Ministry of Culture. We will eventually reach the town of Ölüdeniz, situated in a lovely cove sheltered from the open sea. The views descending into Ölüdeniz are memorable. Here we can relax seaside for a while with the mountains soaring above us. Adventurous sorts may wish to opt for some paragliding here. Mt. Baba, 6,400 feet high, is on the doorstep. The paragliding descent from the mountain can take up to 45 minutes, with amazing views over the lagoon, Butterfly Valley, and, on a clear day, out to Rhodes. Later we return to Dalyan. Breakfast, lunch, dinner included

	Day 6 Today we will journey by land for a couple of hours to the port city of Bodrum, in the southern Aegean Sea. In recent decades Bodrum has become something of a hyper resort, but with its sugar-cube houses draped in bougainvillea and its palm-lined streets, it has managed to cling to its original charm just a little bit better than some other Turkish coastal vacation towns gone mad. Bodrum is gaining a reputation as something of a Monte Carlo of the Aegean with its glitzy marina, sophisticated restaurants, and millions of dollars’ worth of yachts laying over for a night or two. As we will be here after the high season, it should be relatively pleasant and low-key. Our main reason for overnighting here is to break up the journey getting to Ephesus and to take in one of Turkey’s most interesting museums. The construction of the Castle of St. Peter was begun in 1402, and it now houses the Museum of Underwater Archeology. An excellent museum, it brings ancient exhibits to life with imaginatively displayed items and good informational panels, maps, models, dioramas, and videos. The views from the battalions are spectacular. Breakfast and dinner included.

	Day 7 Today we head north, stopping to admire a few notable ancient sites: Herakleia, Didyma, Priene, and Miletus. Herakleia is a wonderful spot where rocks and ruins are so closely entwined it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. During the day women sit by the road making lace. The Temple of Athena stands on a promontory overlooking Lake Bafa. Didyma was the site of a stupendous temple to Apollo, occupied by an oracle as important as the one at Delphi. The ruins of the Temple of Apollo that you see today belong to a late 4th-century BC temple built to replace the original one (destroyed by the Persians in 494 BC), and a later construction sponsored by Alexander the Great. Our lunch spot is just by this Temple. Priene was an important city around 300 BC. The most familiar landmark here is the Temple of Athena. And the theater is one of the best-preserved examples from the Hellenistic period. The Priene ruins are in a beautiful setting beneath steep Mt. Mykale. At the ancient town of Miletus, the Great Theater is the most significant and impressive reminder of a once-grand city, which was a commercial and governmental center from about 700 BC to 700 AD. Some of the site is under water for much of the year, adding to its picturesqueness. Towards the end of the afternoon we will arrive in Sirince and check in to our hotel. Sirince sits up in the hills about 5 miles east of the Aegean coast amid grapevines and peach and apple orchards and is a rather perfect collection of stone-and-stucco houses with red-tiled roofs. We have the pleasure to stay overnight here when cruise passenger day-trippers are not around. Breakfast, lunch, dinner included.

	Day 8 We have most of the day to visit Ephesus, the best-preserved classical city in the Eastern Mediterranean and a major player in the birth and evolution of Christianity. This is the place to get a feel for what life was like during Roman times and is a highlight of any visit to Turkey. Almost as astonishing as the site itself is that only 20% of the ancient city has been excavated. The sights within Ephesus are very numerous, and we will cover a good number of them, including the Library of Celsus and the Terraced Houses. Close to Ephesus we will also see Meryemana (Mary’s House). Believers say that the Virgin Mary came to Ephesus with St. John to live out the final years of her life. To Muslims, Mary is Meryemana, Mother Mary, who bore Isa Peygamber, the Prophet Jesus. Nowadays the site is a church, with the main altar where the kitchen was situated; the right wing was the bedroom. We then transfer to the airport at Izmir and fly to the interior of Turkey, to the weird and wonderful region of Cappadocia, arriving to our hotel in the evening. Breakfast, lunch, dinner included.

	Days 9 and 10 Troglodytes (cave-dwelling humans) settled in this region, deep in the heart of Turkey, with its lunar-like landscape. They burrowed their houses and churches into stone cliffs and their cities underground. The scenery is surreal. You can float over “fairy chimneys” (some may refer to them as a human male anatomical part) in a hot-air balloon in the morning, then go through an underground city, admire Byzantine frescos in the afternoon, enjoy a spectacular sunset, and sample fine food and wine at night. One of Turkey’s World Heritage sites, the Göreme Open-Air Museum is an essential stop. It is a monastic complex of rock-cut Byzantine churches, chapels, rectories, and dwellings, many with stunning frescos and iconoclastic decoration. The practice of monasticism was developed by St. Basil the Great in the 4th century. It took root in Cappadocia and later became the basis of the Orthodox monastic system. The structures here date from 900 to 1200 AD. We will also visit the towns of Uçhisar and Avanos. Uçhisar, dominated by its rock castle, is a place where time seems to stand still. A tall volcanic outcrop riddled with tunnels and windows, the castle is visible for miles around, and it provides panoramic views of the Cappadocian valleys and countryside, with Mt. Erciyes (12,800 ft.) in the distance. The red clay for which Avanos is famed comes from the Red River, which runs through its center. Since Hittite times, local potters have used it to make the simple pots that today still form the backbone of the local economy. You may wish to patronize one of the small pottery workshops that are located in the small streets around the main square. If you fancy a hot air balloon over this marvelous landscape, the early morning of Day 10 is your moment – weather permitting. Flights take place at dawn. For some travelers to Turkey, it’s the highlight of their trip. For sheer fascination and mystery you can’t beat the underground cities of Cappadocia. Some archeologists date the earliest portions of these underground cities back 4,000 years to Hittite times, but they were certainly occupied by the 7th century BC. In times of peace the people of this region lived and farmed above ground, but when invaders threatened they took to their troglodyte dwellings where they could live for up to six months. At Kaymakl¦ we will explore one of these fascinating underground cities, a maze of tunnels and rooms carved eight levels deep into the earth. We also explore the magnificent Soglan¦ Valley, first used by the Romans as necropolises and later by the Byzantines for monastic purposes, with some 150 ancient rock-cut churches. Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner included on Days 9 and 10

	Day 11 We will have a very early-morning transfer from the hotel to the Kayseri airport to catch a flight to Istanbul. Depending on your airline, you may be able to fly out of Istanbul this morning, or you may need to overnight in Istanbul and fly out the next morning. Breakfast included. {Please note: The above itinerary represents our best intentions for this 11-day tour through Turkey. Every effort will be made to follow the itinerary as described here. We do, however, reserve the right to modify some of the itinerary details if circumstances dictate.}

	ACCOMMODATIONS Following is a description of the hotels we intend to use for this tour. We do reserve the right to change hotels, but the quality will always be the same or better.
	Istanbul - Opened in 2004, this hotel has quickly become one of Istanbul's hippest places to stay, combining the luxury of a full-service hotel with the funky decor of a smaller one. Although the hotel doesn't look like much from the outside, the interior is a treat; think of it as an 18-story boutique hotel. The lobby is done in floor-to-ceiling brown-and-cream tiles and has vintage '50s and '60s furniture. Rooms have large windows looking over the city. There's a small pool on the roof, and the lobby café has an excellent range of cakes and chocolates. This is a stylish hotel in Istanbul's happening Beyoglu district.

	Turquoise Coast -This beautifully built hotel opened in 2005 on a bend in the Dalyan River. A bit farther out of Dalyan town center than most other hotels, and more sophisticated, the grounds include wide, well-tended gardens, a tennis court, a large pool, and a bright, well-designed restaurant where even the bread is made in-house.

	Bodrum -The small hotel we've chosen offers a prime location for spectacular sunsets over Bodrum and its castle. The hotel's staff is efficient and professional. Each of the spacious, comfortable guest rooms is tastefully decorated with pretty, modern furniture and comes with a balcony or terrace. There's a heated open-air jacuzzi for all seasons and an excellent poolside restaurant where you can taste homemade organic wines, special Mediterranean cuisine, and the freshest local seafood.

	Sirince - A complex of renovated houses at the top of Sirince's hillside offers total immersion into the daily rhythm of the village life. At the upper edge of the hillside is the main pavilion, which contains the reception area and smartly decorated rooms with nouveau Hellenistic frescoes and antique furniture. A further three restored houses are accessed by a stone staircase, terraced below the main pavilion.

	Cappadocia - Opened in 1999, the hotel we've selected is the project of one of the local residents of a sleepy, unspoiled Cappadocian village. The hotel is built in and around the valley's caves, and enclosed within an elegant rose garden; if you walk along the creek a short way, you can bring back a pitcher of fresh bubbly mineral water. In keeping with the natural focus of the hotel, mattresses are handmade of 100% cotton and breakfast's bounty consists of locally dried apricots, pure village honey, and cream straight from the owner's cow. Guests can even participate in village activities like milking the cow or harvesting grapes with the residents.

	TOUR COST $3195 (14-15 participants) $3395 (12-13 participants) $3595 (9-11 participants) Single Supplement: $485 Tour Cost Includes: All accommodations All meals except two lunches and one dinner, including all non-alcoholic beverages Welcome drink Alcoholic beverages with some meals Professional tour escort to accompany the group throughout the trip Local tour guide for hiking on the Lycian Way All admission fees to sights mentioned in the itinerary Private, comfortable, modern tour buses; fuel, tolls, parking Drivers' services and room/board Tour Cost Does Not Include: International airfare Domestic airfare for 3 internal flights: Istanbul-Dalaman; Izmir-Kayseri; Kayseri-Istanbul. Please allow $400. Venture Out will book these domestic flight reservations. Tipping to tour escort and drivers Beverages, except where noted in the program Any extra hotel nights that may be needed or desired Personal expenses such as laundry, phone calls, room service, minibar charges, etc.

	ISTANBUL SITES Haghia Sophia (in Turkish, Aya Sofya) is a former patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, and now a museum. Famous in particular for its massive dome, it is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture. It was the largest cathedral in the world for nearly a thousand years, until the completion of the cathedral in Seville, Spain, in 1520. The current building was originally constructed as a church between 532 and 537 on the orders of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, and was in fact the third Church of the Holy Wisdom to occupy the site (the previous two had both been destroyed by riots). It was the church of the Patriarch of Constantinople and the religious focus point of the Orthodox Byzantine Empire for nearly 1000 years. In 1453, Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and Sultan Mehmed II ordered the building to be converted into a mosque. The Islamic features - such as the mihrab, the minbar, and the four minarets outside - were added over the course of its history under the Ottomans. It remained a mosque until 1935, when it was converted into a museum by the secular Republic of Turkey.

	The Hippodrome of Constantinople (Sultanahmet Meydan¦) was a horseracing track that was the sporting and social center of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Today it is a square named Sultanahmet Meydan¦ (Sultan Ahmet Square) with only a few fragments of the original structure surviving. It is sometimes also called Atmeydan¦ (Horse Square) in Turkish. Horse racing and chariot racing were popular pastimes in the ancient world, and hippodromes were common features of Greek cities in the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine eras.

	The Sultan Ahmed Mosque is known as the Blue Mosque for the blue tiles adorning the walls of its interior. It was built between 1609 and 1616, during the rule of Ahmed I. Like many other mosques, it also comprises a tomb of the founder, a madrasah (school), and a hospice. The design of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque is the culmination of two centuries of Ottoman mosque development. It is the last great mosque of the classical period. The architect (a pupil of the great architect Sinan) ably synthesized the ideas of his master, aiming for overwhelming size, majesty and splendor, but some would argue that the interior lacks his creative thinking.

	The Basilica Cistern, also called the Yerebatan Saray¦ or Yerebatan Sarn¦c¦, is the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns that still lie beneath the city. Located on the historical peninsula of Istanbul next to the Haghia Sophia, it was built during the reign of emperor Justinian I in the 6th century, the age of glory of Eastern Rome, also called the Byzantine Empire. This cathedral-sized cistern is an underground chamber measuring roughly 470 by 210 feet, capable of holding 80,000 cubic meters of water. The large space is broken up by a forest of 336 marble columns each 30 feet high. The columns are arranged in 12 rows of 28 columns per row. According to historians, Emperor Constantine had already built a basilica and cistern on the same spot. As the demand for water grew, Justinian enlarged the cisterns and incorporated the basilica. The cistern is surrounded by a brick firewall with a thickness of 13 feet and coated with a special mortar for waterproofing. The cistern's water was provided from the Belgrade Woods—which lie 12 miles north of the city—via aqueducts.

	The Topkap¦ Palace is located on Seraglio Point, a promontory overlooking the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara. It is a conglomeration of many smaller buildings and four courtyards. It was built on the site of the old acropolis of the ancient Greek city of Byzantium. After the fall of Constantinople, it became the administrative center of the Ottoman Empire from 1465 to 1853 as well as the primary residence of the Ottoman sultans. Up to 4,000 people resided in the palace. It was originally called the "New Palace" to distinguish it from the previous residence, the site of today’s Istanbul University. The palace is full of examples of Ottoman-style architecture and possesses large collections of porcelain, robes, jewelry, weapons, shields, armor, Islamic calligraphic manuscripts and mural decorations. The Topkap¦ Palace gradually lost its importance at the end of the 17th century, as the sultans preferred to spend more time in their new palaces along the Bosphorus. The Topkap¦ Palace was eventually transformed into a museum.

	The Spice Bazaar is one of the oldest bazaars in the city. Located in Eminönü, it is the second largest covered shopping complex after the Grand Bazaar. It was completed in 1660. The Turkish name for the market translates as “Egyptian Bazaar.” It was famous for selling goods that were shipped in from Cairo. As well as spices, nuts, honey, and olive oil soaps, the bustling bazaar sells truckloads of figs, Turkish Delight, cheeses, and fruit pressed into sheets and dried.

	To the west of the Spice Bazaar, the little-visited Mosque of Rüstem Pasa is a little gem. Built in 1560 by the renowned architect Sinan for the son-in-law and grand vizier of Suleyman the Magnificent, it is a showpiece of the best Ottoman architecture and tile work, albeit on a small scale. The interior is covered in gorgeous tiles and features a lovely dome.
	The Mosque of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent crowns one of the seven hills dominating the Golden Horn and provides a magnificent landmark for the entire city. It was commissioned by the greatest, richest, and most powerful of Ottoman sultans, Suleyman the Magnificent, who reigned from 1520 to 1566. Although it is not the largest of the Ottoman mosques, it is certainly the grandest. It was designed by Sinan, the most famous and talented of all Imperial architects, and he chose to be buried here. The mosque is pleasing in its simplicity. There is little decoration except for some fine Iznik tiles in the mihrab (niche indicating the direction of Mecca) and gorgeous stained-glass windows.

	The extraordinary Kariye Museum (Chora Church) is tucked away in the little-visited western districts of the city. The original name of this building was Chora Church, or the Church of the Holy Savior Outside the Walls. What is seen today was built in the 11th century. Virtually all of the interior decoration dates from 1312. The stunning mosaics depict the lives of Christ and Mary.

If you'd like to receive occasional announcements about our trips, news, specials, etc., please join our list. Thank you!

Specialized Tours for Special Travelers