How was your Explore Tour Leader?

Tim was most enthusiastic about his home country (Turkey) and full of information - always smiling!

What tips would you give to someone else booking this tour?

Be aware that the activity rating of 2 is fine for most of the trip, but both young and older members of our group had problems managing the steep slopes and long flights of steep and uneven steps to fully access some of the sites.  October is an excellent time of year to do this trip; the temperature was in the high 20's and the sun shone, but it was not overbearingly hot.

Do you have anything else to add?

I can't wait to go back to Turkey for a chance to see more of this lovely country.  I have my eye on the "Asia Minor Explorer" trip.

How was your Explore Tour Leader?

Tim, our tour leader, was excellent.  He was enthusiastic and very knowledgable.  He made sure was had a fun and memorable holiday.

What tips would you give to someone else booking this tour?

On this tour, we did a lot of walking around on rough surfaces.  A sturdy and comfortable pair of shoes is defeintely recommended.

Do you have anything else to add?

I really appreciated the small single supplement for this tour.

A really interesting tour around many of the ancient highlights in Turkey. The tour guide was brilliant with excellent knowledge of the sites and my particular highlights were Ephesus and Pamukkale. The tour has a good pace, with a few days quite busy and extremely cultural and a couple of days with a nice relaxing itinerary - a lovely mix. I didnt do this - but in hindsight a great option would be to combine the TA tour with the Blue Cruise CE tour afterwards as they can be combined, other passengers did this and contacted me afterwards to state it was a great combination of tours. (TA - 21st June 2010)

Highlights were the remote sites of Pinara and Alinda. These were completely untouched and unrestored.  The stadium at Aphrodisias was the largest and best preserved I've seen.  The unexpected bits were the evening trip to the wine making village of Sirence for our meal, plus wine tasting.  It is a really beautiful village.  Another unexpected was the lunch at the local family's house in Minara on the way to the Pinara ruins.  We sat in their back yard, eating a beautiful lunch overlooking the hills.  Don't expect the usual standard of hotels for Hotel+  though.  Many of the hotels were very shabby and some quite dirty.  They didn't have top sheets on the beds, only rough blankets that didn't look as though they'd been washed.  My advice is to take a top sheet - that way you know you're the only person who's slept in it! (TA - 23rd October)