Turkey

Turkey sits with one foot in Europe and one in Asia, and the country has spent its entire history being shaped by that position — Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman in turn, each leaving more than they took.

Istanbul is where all of that converges and is the natural anchor of any trip: the city of Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, the Grand Bazaar's covered streets, the Bosphorus dividing the continents and the ferries stitching them back together. Beyond it, Cappadocia's tufa valleys and cave dwellings are the country's most surreal landscape — best seen at dawn from a balloon. The Aegean and Mediterranean coasts hold the classical sites, Ephesus among them, and the turquoise water of the Lycian shore; the white travertine terraces of Pamukkale sit inland.

April through June and September into October are the country at its most comfortable — warm on the coast, mild in Istanbul and Cappadocia, and clear of the high-summer heat that bears down on the interior.