The guidebook said intriguingly: "Turkey is a man running west on a ship heading east".
From the plane window, peering down at Istanbul straddling two continents, I wondered what was implied. The Bosphorus snakes up the middle, clearly dividing the city. Hopefully our two-week visit would help us to make some sense of it.
The bit of Turkey that lies in Europe is dominated by the Gallipoli Peninsula and Istanbul. And Istanbul was where we, and what seemed like half the tourists in the world, started our trip.
Three days is not nearly enough to get a proper feel for the place, but on a short visit to Istanbul a good tip is to purchase a three-day museum pass.
This allows swift access to most of the major sights, and helps to avoid the long queues. Even in late autumn, in rainy cool weather, these queues were fearsome.
The mass of humanity, all intent on taking selfies, did rather spoil the famed Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia for me.
The intricate opulence of the ceilings lost some of its impact when viewed through a forest of selfie sticks. And it's hard to capture the spirit of a place amid chattering crowds.
Yet, as is so often the case, the smallest, humblest things made the biggest impression. I was pushed up against a railing in the magnificent Hagia Sophia when, glancing down, I was enthralled by an inscription, carefully preserved beneath perspex.
It went unnoticed by the throngs craning their necks upwards. At this very spot, in the 9th century, a Viking called Halfdan had come to view a then-already ancient church and had etched his name to prove it (as modern-day louts do to this day).
It thrilled me to see that Viking-age graffiti hidden among the treasures of a 1,400-year-old church.
OVERPOWERING SPECTACLE
This would be the pattern while exploring Turkey's countless antiquities. In the celebrated harem in Topkapi Palace, the delicate intricacy of a single tile somehow impressed me more than the almost overpowering spectacle of room after room of luminous tile work.
And while the crowds - which, incredibly, had increased - shuffled through the royal apartments, we discovered a tiny church in a quiet corner of the palace complex.
Unadorned and unobserved, the 6th-century Hagia Eirene's stark simplicity was as moving as the gorgeous brilliance of the palace in whose shadow it hides.
Leaving behind the crowded glories of Istanbul, we headed west to the battlefields of Gallipoli. Off the tourist route, it is a sad and poignant place, filled with the presence of a multitude of dead soldiers.
Stark war memorials mark the various battle sites, with thousands upon thousands of identical gravestones. But it was the sight of a battered little letter in the interpretive centre that wrenched my heart.
It was from a young soldier, written days before he perished. Its childlike scrawl read "Dear Mother, I do not need underwear ..."
We crossed the Dardanelles by ferry at the same point where, in 481 BC, Xerxes lined up his "bridge of boats" allowing 100,000 men to cross the strait. Ours was a more solitary crossing, with fine views of the peninsula.
Our first stop in Asia was Troy, and the parking lot was heaving. We were back on the tourist route.
The once-mighty city is now a confusing maze of stones, its famed walls, which had withstood a decade-long siege, reduced to rubble.
Much to the delight of our fellow tourists, there was a cheesy replica of the famous wooden horse, where a bored local, dressed as a Trojan warrior, lolled in the shade, cellphone clasped to his ear.
PERGAMON
We fled down the coast to another ancient city. Pergamon, perched on a promontory above a modern town, is much more impressive.
This ancient centre of learning once rivalled Alexandria and boasted a library holding 200,000 scrolls, before Mark Antony carried them off as a gift for Cleopatra.
These days a cable car saves the modern tourist the strenuous climb. Finding the amphitheatre loud with tour groups, we ducked down the timeworn marble slabs of the old Roman road leading down the steep slope.
There we came upon the remains of the homes of the middle classes. One had beautifully preserved mosaic floors, yet - hidden from the cable car - it is seldom visited.
The scenes were depicted so graphically that the long-gone inhabitants seem only to have decamped for the day, leaving their exquisite flooring for us to admire.
BEAUTIFULLY PRESERVED
On to Ephesus, which, as expected, was jam-packed with sightseers. Giant cruise ships dispatch busloads to this beautifully preserved Greco-Roman city. Here the best strategy was simply to allow oneself to be swallowed up by the crowds and to latch onto a group with an English-speaking guide.
Patience paid off as we waited for a gap in the throng and got some photographs of seldom-noticed objects: a little Jewish carving, easily overlooked, on the steps of the library. A cat curled up on a sun-baked plinth.
And a concave lintel, worn down by hundreds of thousands of feet, both ancient and modern, en route to the much-photographed row of marble toilet seats (icy in winter, so one sent one's slave to warm them).
Even bursting at the seams, Ephesus leaves a lasting impression.
The tourist bus route then turns eastwards, towards the dazzling white travertine terraces of Pamukkale so beloved of compilers of Turkish travel brochures.
Here, blessedly, the majority of tourists preferred to paddle in the crystal-blue pools of calcium-rich water. Few people ventured up the dangerously slippery slopes to the top to explore the ancient ruins of Hierapolis.
The contrast between the ice-white terraces and the green gardens surrounding the ruins at the top makes for a surreal experience.
We had the place to ourselves, with only the distant babbling as a reminder that we were at one of the most visited sights in Turkey.
A series of ancient civilizations - pagan through to early Christian - enjoyed the thermal pools here. A full moon rose above the spectacular Roman theatre, peopled only by ghosts.
More emptiness greeted us on the Great Silk Road. Its name conjures camel caravans and exotic Eastern delights; we found ourselves instead on a modern highway crossing an endless, featureless plain.
Tractors trundling along outnumbered cars, but not quite tour buses. We were about to arrive at the highlight of our travels.
Cappadocia is the stuff of dreams. A surreal landscape of tall, conical rocky outcrops, into which have been carved ancient churches, monasteries and even modern-day dwellings - the satellite dishes poking out of rock chimneys are a giveaway. Mysterious underground cities and an iconic extinct volcano add to its allure.
Our hotel, the Aydinli Cave Hotel, was set inside a rocky outcrop, with comfortable bedrooms carved into the rocks.
Breakfast was served on a terrace overlooking the Hobbit-like dwellings below. I found troglodyte living much to my liking: cool during the day and warm and quiet at night.
One last treat awaited - a hot-air balloon trip. From our vantage point in a wicker basket beneath a blue and yellow balloon some 300m up, the crowded world retreated. Tour groups shrank to ant colonies and buses to dinky toys.
A handful of us were floating up, up and away. Who cared if Turkey is in the East or West? From up there it was all only one quiet, uncrowded, wonderful world.
PLAN YOUR TRIP
GETTING THERE
Turkish Airlines flies between Johannesburg, Cape Town and Istanbul, with return fares currently around R16,542. See turkishairlines.com.
If price is a bigger factor than travel time then check out Gulf carriers such as Emirates, whose fares are currently from around R9,800. Expect fares to dip after Europe goes back to work in September.
VISAS
South Africans do require visas for Turkey. These are available on arrival.
