Amazingly diverse and rich with natural and historical wonders, undiscovered and cheap, Turkey is one of the best destinations for any adventurer at any time. Even more so – in September.

At this time of the year the summer heat and the tourist crowds have subsided, yet the days are still long and the temperatures – pleasant. September casts a glowing, softer light on buildings and landscapes alike, adding to their usual splendour a taste of nostalgia – a longing for the way they were in the past, not unlike the one Orhan Pamuk describes in many of his novels.

BalkanTravellers.com provides you with five spots in Turkey that give rise to a sense of nostalgia – from the dusty streets of Istanbul that beckon the visitor with culinary temptations, through the surreal landscape of Cappadocia and Ishak Pasha’s erstwhile palace, to the decrepit churches of long-abandoned Ani and the Byzantine monastery of Sumela in the eastern Turkey, they are all worth a visit in September.

1. Take a one-day culinary tour of Istanbul which goes beyond döneror Turkish delight – the cliché emblems of Turkish cuisine. Beside access to its delicious diversity and creativity, such a tour would give you a taste of the culinary pleasures that the Ottoman sultans experiences on a daily basis.



Images of the past also fill the names of some of the present-day Turkish desserts, like turbans, sultanas, sarays, or palaces, and the ever so descriptive kadın-göbek, meaning woman’s belly, used in reference to the round, buttery sweet with a peanut in the middle, reminiscent of the white and chubby bellies of Oriental dancers.

Read more about Istanbul’s culinary temptations on BalkanTravellers.com

2. Go on a hot-air balloon ride over Cappadocia in central Turkey. Because of its diversity, the fantastic landscape can be explored by trekking, climbing, crawling, and abseiling, but it is most impressive at sunrise, viewed from under the multicoloured canvas of a hot air balloon.



The valleys strewn with sand cones, the tall stone pillars with triangular roofs and the canyons in rocks, seemingly made out of melted butter, were created by natural process known as differential erosion.

The place offers a strange, picturesque combination of the ancient and the modern: many of the dwellings, dug into the rocks at different levels over the past 10,000 years ago, continue to be inhabited, and now satellite dishes stick out of them, enormous local kangal dogs guard them, windows have been put into the openings and motorbikes lean against walls here and there.

Read more about Cappadocia on BalkanTravellers.com

3. Tour Kurdish warlord Ishak Pasha’s palace, located on a high plateau near the mythical Ararat Mountain in present-day eastern Turkey.



Considered to be the last monumental building of the Ottoman Empire’s Lale Devri, or Tulip Period, the eighteenth-century complex combines Georgian, Armenian, Seljuk and Persian elements.

The remains of the palace, which was completed more than 300 years ago, not only give an idea of what life was like during Ishak Pasha’s time, but also surprise with some assets that seem modern and pragmatic even today, like the central heating, running water and sewage system; the dungeon and stables, reachable from the first courtyard; the Turkish bath and the spacious kitchen. Added to the exquisite mosque, mausoleum, library and two reception halls with richly ornate façades, portals and interiors, they create an indisputable architectural masterpiece.

Read more about the Ishak Pasha Palace on BalkanTravellers.com

4. Take a stroll upon the ceramic shards broken over the centuries at Ani, eastern Turkey. The medieval capital of the Armenian kingdom, known as the “City of 1,001 Churches” has laid in ruins for the last seven centuries. Now its landscape consists of a steppe with halves of monumental buildings scattered all over - half a church, half a turret, half a chimney of a severed mosque…



So, in order to get a grasp the wealth and splendour that used to characterise Ani or picture its architecture, considered avant-garde at the time, the visitor needs to summon his imagination rather than count on the actual remains of the city that can still be seen.

On the path to remarkable red Menüçer Mosque, now in ruins, the ceramic shards – some covered with ornaments or coated with colourful glaze, make one imagine the buildings and lives – now lost, that the tiles were once a part of.

Read more about Ani on BalkanTravellers.com

5. Enjoy the view from the sixth-century Sumela Monastery in eastern Turkey. Perched onto the green rocks, which drop down vertically for hundreds of metres, Sumela is the most important and best-preserved Byzantine monastery from the dozens that were established in this area between the fifth and the seventh centuries. Due to its dramatic location, it also boasts one of the most stunning views of all the monasteries in the world.

Despite the destructive effect of natural forces and people, the complex of monastic cells, halls, a refectory and several chapels has been preserved almost intact, except for the gouged eyes of the saints from the frescoes that decorate the rock church in the complex.



As far as their hands could reach, Christian iconoclasts and Turkish secular and religious enemies of expressing Orthodox beliefs through images of people, have scratched the saints’ eyes, thus robbing them of the magnificent view. So, here too, the visitor is left with a feeling of nostalgia for the way things used to be.

Read more about the Sumela Monastery on BalkanTravellers.com


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