August 10, 2004 -- Turkey and Greece share the gorgeous Mediterranean and Aegean seas: marvelous coastlines, little islands dotted with sandy beaches, whitewashed villages, and hospitable peoples. Now is the best time to plan for autumn travel to either country.
Discount for Frommers.com Readers
Troy Tours offers a $100 per couple discount if you mention "Frommers.com Newsletter" before booking their Athens to Venice cruise this fall. Starting in Athens, after an October 24, 2004 Alitalia departure from the USA, you spend one night in the Greek capital and tour the city for half a day before boarding the Orient Line's Marco Polo on this fully escorted trip. The ship departs at 6 PM. Your ports of call include Kusadasi (nine hours for the visit, including a trip to magnificent Ephesus); Istanbul (ten hours, private city tour included); Mykonos (six hours); cruising the Adriatic (with a private wine and cheese party); Dubrovnik (five hours), and overnight on board in Venice (with private walking tour). The price, including air from New York City, is $1,345 per person in a double cabin/room, which works out to about $168 per night, $135 per day.
The price mentioned is for an inside "K" cabin, though outside G and D outside cabins are available for $100 or $200 per person extra. Your night in Athens is in a four-star hotel. On board, all meals are included, in Athens, just breakfast. Airport departure taxes of about $114 and port charges of $225 are not included, and neither are tips. Contact them at 800/748-6878 or check out their website, www.troytours.com.
More Turkish Treasures
We wrote about Gate 1's $899, 10-night "Turkish Treasures" package recently, a fine deal indeed. Now we'd like to point out the same firm's 14-day "Turkish Treasures" program -- it's longer and it's on sale. From just $999 ($100 more than the shorter trip and working out to just over $83 per night), you can take in, besides the vast spaces covered by the other tour, a marvelous area of the country. Crossing by ferry, you tour the area south of the Dardenelles, including Gallipoli, Troy and unforgettable Pergamum. At Gallipoli, you'll be where World War I history was made, and at Troy, of course, where much of Homer's Iliad was laid. Pergamum is one of the most important ruins in the entire country, and here, you will visit their Acropolis and the Asclepion, a fourth century B.C. site where many historians believe modern medicine was first practiced, named for the Greek god of health and medicine, Aesculapius, Apollo's son.
In addition to visiting this special part of Turkey, you get, for your additional $100 over the shorter trip, an extra night in Istanbul and one night in Cannakale, near Troy, with two more breakfasts and two more dinners as well. Just a reminder -- both trips include airfare from New York. Also a plus is the fact that this tour starts and ends in Istanbul, while the shorter version starts in Izmir, ending in Istanbul.
To refresh your memory, both tours visit Izmir, Sardis, Ephesus, Kusadasi, Pamukkale, Konya, Nevsehir, Ankara and Istanbul. Contact Gate1Travel at www.gate1travel.com or by phoning 800/682-3333.
Greece & Turkey
You can combine both destinations as well with Homeric Tours. They have an especially appealing itinerary on their 16-day/14-night Greece & Turkey program, with post-Olympics departures this September, October and November starting from $2,599 per person, sharing a double cabin/room. Included are roundtrip airfare from New York, a four-day cruise to Mykonos, Patmos, Crete and Santorini, four nights in Istanbul, two nights in Athens, two nights in Cappadocia, one night in Pamukkale, one night in Kusadasi (near Ephesus), daily breakfasts, all meals on the cruise, and much more. The price works out to about $186 per person per night.
You cruise on the Royal Olympic ship, the Aegean Classic. Airport taxes of $190 and port taxes of $95 per person are not included. Contact them at www.homerictours.com or phone 800/223-5570.
A Word of Caution
For those travelers with safety concerns due to the recent Istanbul bombings, we refer you to the State Department's Consular Information Sheet at https://travel.state.gov/travel/turkey.html. At press time, the government hadn't issued a full-blown warning on travel to Turkey, but rather asks that American travelers be vigilant and keep a low profile.