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.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 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...