Under deep blue skies, on the red soil of Eastern Turkey stand monuments of civilizations stretching back to the dawn of time. Empires rose and fell, the Hurrian Empire, five thousand years ago, gave way to the Urartrian, then the Hittite, Roman, Armenian, Byzantine, Seljuk Turk, and Ottoman. Follow in the footsteps of conquerors and vanished civilizations as we discover Eastern Turkey...

At the Antakya Mosaic Museum see one of the world’s best collections of Roman mosaics, all unearthed locally, and the Grotto of St.Peter where the Saint preached to the faithful of Antioch.

In the desert near Sanliurfa stand the beehive mud houses of Harran, one of the oldest continuously inhabited places on the planet and once home to Abraham.

Nemrut Dagh’s tomb-temple with gigantic heads of the gods and King Antiochus is a monument to man’s hubris and the world’s most beautiful place to watch the sun rise over the mountains.

Beneath the towering Rock of Van lies Old Van, capital of the Hurrian and Urartian Empires, whose surviving artifacts, including gold and jewelled breastplates, are on display at the Van Museum. Our boatman’s oars propel us to Akdamar Island and an Armenian church whose exterior is covered in Biblical reliefs. In the ancient Armenian capital Ani, we see strikingly naturalistic frescoes at the Church of St.Gregory the Illuminator.

Among the green valleys and endless tea fields of the Black Sea coast is Trabzon, furthest outpost of the Eastern Roman Empire, fortified by the Byzantines and Silk Road merchants. The monastery church of Hagia Sophia, built by Emperor Manuel I Comnenus assimilates Christian and Muslim architecture. A Greek monk, Barnabus, was told in a vision to take an icon painted by St. Luke to Trabzon and found Sumela Monastery, which clings to a cliff hundreds of meters high.

From the vibrant green of Turkey’s lush Black Sea Coast, through dense pine forests and hidden valleys, this tour encompasses some of the most dramatic scenery in the world. The extraordinary diversity of Turkey’s Eastern and South-Eastern region includes the red ochre plains of Erzurum, the forests, waterfalls and green pastures of Kars and the permanent snow-cap on Biblical Mount Agri (Ararat). Lake Van with its deep blue waters, small earth-roofed houses, and fascinating tribes of nomadic people intrigue the inveterate traveller and lover of beauty and adventure.

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