Central Anatolia

Kayseri is a large Anatolian city at the foot of Mount Erciyes, the highest mountain in central Türkiye, and the main gateway to Cappadocia by air. It has Seljuk monuments, a castle in the middle of town, a strong food culture and a ski resort on its doorstep. Many visitors pass through the airport without…

Ankara is Türkiye’s capital, a planned city on the Anatolian plateau and the seat of government since the Republic was founded in 1923. It has none of Istanbul’s skyline or the coast’s beaches, and most visitors skip it. That is a mistake if you care about history: Ankara has the best museum of ancient Anatolia…

Konya was the capital of the Seljuk Turks in the 12th and 13th centuries, and it is the city of Rumi, the 13th-century poet and mystic. Today it is a pilgrimage destination for people from across the Muslim world, a center of Seljuk architecture and the gateway to Çatalhöyük, one of the oldest known settlements…

Cappadocia is a region of central Anatolia carved by volcanoes and erosion into valleys of pale rock cones, cliffs and fairy chimneys, where people have cut houses, churches and whole underground cities into the stone for more than a thousand years. UNESCO inscribed Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia in 1985. It…