Turkey

Turkey sits at the hinge of the world, and everything about it doubles: two continents, layers of empire stacked like sediment, and a table that borrows the best from both directions. Istanbul is the great overture. The Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque face each other across a square that has watched fifteen centuries pass, the Grand Bazaar hums its eternal negotiation, and the Bosphorus ferries stitch Europe to Asia for the price of a coffee. Then Cappadocia rewrites your mornings: a hundred hot air balloons rising at dawn over valleys of fairy chimneys, with cave hotels waiting below. The turquoise coast adds gulet cruises over sunken ruins, Ephesus resurrects a Roman city street by street, and Pamukkale terraces spill white travertine down a hillside. Turkey is epic, delicious and wide open to you.