Sample Itinerary:

Day 1
Arrival to Ankara with a morning flight. After meeting with our guide and collecting the luggage; transfer to your hotel for check-in. After sometime for refreshment; depart from the hotel and visit Anatolian Civilizations Museum. Dinner and overnight.

Day 2 
After breakfast and check-out drive to Gordion. The origins of Gordion date back to the Bronze Age. It was a Hittite city which later became the capital of the Kingdom of Phrygia. The city reached its apogée between 725 and 696 BC, under the reign of king Midas, the king of the “golden touch and the ass’s ears”. t is believed that the destruction of Gordion by the Cimmerians resulted in the suicide of King Midas in 696 BC. The city, which was rebuilt on a smaller mound, came under the domination of the Lydians and the Persians until Alexander the Great gave it back its independence in 333 BC.

The first excavations at the site were conducted in 1900 by the Korte brothers. From 1950 to 1974 the Gordion Project of the University Museum (University of Pennsylvania) conducted excavations under the direction of Rodney S. Young. He was succeeded as director by Keith DeVries and, since 1987, G. K. Sams. From 1988 Mary M. Voigt has been field director. Excavations made on the upper part of the city revealed a high passage and houses belonging to royal family. Tumulus, the most famous of which belonged to King Midas; with its 53-meter height and 300-meter width, it is the second biggest tomb of its type in the world.

Then drive to Cappadocia for dinner and overnight.

Day 3 
A full day of Cappadocia including visits to Kaymakli Underground City, Goreme Open Air Museum, Avanos, Zelve and Uchisar

Day 4
After breakfast and check out, drive to Antalya. En route visit Konya. Dinner and overnight at Antalya.

Day 5 
A full day tour of Aspendos, Perge and Archeological Museum. At the end of the tour drive to Kalkan for overnight.

Day 6 
Educational seminar on Patara with prof. Fahri Isik and on site visit/meeting:  Meet with Prof. Fahri Isik a professor of archaeology from Akdeniz University in Antalya who is in charge of the dig and Gül Isin, an archaeologist from Akdeniz University who serves as a sort of aide-de-camp to Mr. Isik. Educational talk on discoveries and importance of Patara.

Patara is a Greek ruin, a Roman one and a Byzantine one as well, which is what makes the site, buried in sand for centuries, an important newcomer to theT urkish archaeological scene, likely to take its place alongside Troy, Pergamon or Ephesus as one of the most important ones. visit to the actual site. Dinner and overnight Patara.

Day 7
After a leisure breakfast, drive to Antalya for the flight to Istanbul. Upon arrival transfer to hotel. The rest of the day will be free at leisure.

Day 8
A full day city tour including visits to St. Sophia, Hippodrome, Topkapi Palace and Archeological Museum.

Day 9
Discover the very new archeological sites in Istanbul. Archaeological work in connection with the Marmaray Project, which is constructing an underwater tunnel to connect the European and Asian sides of Istanbul, has been undertaken since 2004 at three main sites where the underground stations will be located (Sirkeci, Yenikapı and Üsküdar). The large team is led by İsmail Karamut of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.

At Sirkeci rescue work has taken place at four spots. It revealed an Ottoman level, then a transitional fill without architecture, then a Byzantine level, each level having several phases. The Ottoman remains consisted mostly of the foundations of buildings razed in the 1890s for the railway station, as well as some remains of older platforms replaced by the existing ones. The Byzantine remains include lots of wasters, tripods, vitrified pottery and other evidence of pottery production, as well as mortars and pestles of marble. All the slipped shreds have incision and so date to the 13th and 14th centuries. A circular construction could be a kiln.

At the base of the sounding was a layer containing only large jugs and amphoras. This area was a deep bay originally and in the 6th century AD was known as the port of Prosphorianos. The neighboring bay of Neorion had become a marsh by the 10th century and probably this too had silted up.

Other soundings in Sirkeci have produced evidence of 13th century AD Jewish leather workshops and 15th-16th century Iznik ceramics, as well as Byzantine finds that include religious objects such as ampulla, seals and crucifixes. In the East Shaft excavations, deposits from early Byzantine through Roman and Hellenistic have now been excavated.

Day 10
The day will be free at leisure

Day 11
After breakfast and check-out, transfer to airport for international flight.