Türkiye Overland Part 1: Kapıkule to Kapadokya via İstanbul, Bursa & Ankara

Gerdekkaya Mezar Anıtı near Çukurca, Eskişehir — our first clue that this route through Dağlık Frigya would involve a great deal of carved rock.

This Türkiye chapter continues directly from Sofia, Bulgaria to Türkiye — Silk Road Overland and forms the next leg of our 2025 Silk Road expedition. We entered at Kapıkule, crossed European Türkiye, returned to İstanbul, then kept going east until the road put us inside a cave hotel in Kapadokya. Türkiye has a charming habit of making a route map look simple and the actual trip much more interesting.

It was also a return. We had already visited İstanbul in 2021, and later crossed the country westbound from Georgia toward Greece on our earlier overland Türkiye crossing. That westbound run left an HGS toll tag on Shehzadi's windshield, bought at a PTT office in Arhavi and still doing its little administrative duty long after most souvenirs would have retired.

Türkiye Overland Part 1 — Post Summary

This first Türkiye chapter carries us from Kapıkule through Trakya to İstanbul, across the Boğaziçi into Asia, over İzmit Körfezi to Bursa, then through Frig Vadisi and Ankara to our cave hotel in Nevşehir, Kapadokya. Along the way we return to İstanbul with memories of our 2021 Pamukkale journey, walk through Bursa's silk history, and stop at the rock-cut monuments of Dağlık Frigya.

What's Covered
🧭	Route at a Glance — Kapıkule to Kapadokya
🛂	Kapıkule to İstanbul — entering Türkiye through Trakya
✈️	Arnavutköy — overnight near İstanbul Havalimanı
🕌	İstanbul Again — 2021 İstanbul and Pamukkale flashback
🌉	Boğaziçi to İzmit Körfezi — Europe to Asia, then Osmangazi Köprüsü
🧵	Bursa — Koza Han, Ulu Cami and silk
🏔️	Frig Vadisi — Çukurca, Midas Han and volcanic tuff
🗿	Gerdekkaya & Yazılıkaya — Hellenistic tomb and Midas Anıtı
🏛️	Ankara — Suluhan and Ulus
🪨	Ankara to Kapadokya — Ennar Cave House in Nevşehir

We cleared Kapıkule into Türkiye and drove east through Trakya toward İstanbul, overnighting in Arnavutköy before returning to a city we knew from 2021. From there Shehzadi crossed the Boğaziçi into Asia, crossed İzmit Körfezi on Osmangazi Köprüsü, stopped for silk history in Bursa, continued through Frig Vadisi and Ankara, and finally reached Ennar Cave House in Nevşehir, Kapadokya.

From: Kapıkule, Edirne, Türkiye
To: Ennar Cave House, Nar, Nevşehir, Kapadokya
Roads: E80 toward İstanbul · O-5 via Osmangazi Köprüsü · D200/E90 toward Ankara · O-21/D300 toward Nevşehir
Continental Crossing: 15 Temmuz Şehitler Köprüsü across the Boğaziçi — Europe → Asia
Vehicle: Shehzadi — 2024 Toyota Tundra
Route Map: Google My Maps

Route at a Glance

1. Kapıkule → İstanbul through Trakya
2. Arnavutköy — overnight near İstanbul Havalimanı
3. İstanbul — return visit and 2021 Pamukkale flashback
4. Boğaziçi → İzmit Körfezi — Europe to Asia and Osmangazi Köprüsü
5. Bursa — Koza Han, Ulu Cami and silk
6. Frig Vadisi — Çukurca, Midas Han and volcanic tuff
7. Gerdekkaya Mezar Anıtı → Yazılıkaya Midas Anıtı
8. Ankara — Suluhan and Ulus
9. Ankara → Kapadokya — Ennar Cave House

Kapıkule to İstanbul: Entering Türkiye Through Trakya

The Kapitan Andreevo–Kapıkule crossing dropped us from Bulgaria into Kapıkule, still firmly in European Türkiye. The road east follows the E80 corridor toward İstanbul. Kapıkule is a huge customs gateway, which is useful to know while sitting in a queue and wondering whether the booths have quietly moved farther away.

Kapitan Andreevo–Kapıkule — the queue into Türkiye. Borders remain one of civilization's most reliable methods for turning forward motion into stationary paperwork.

Once the barriers were behind us, Trakya gave us the first long eastbound run of the post: broad farm country, busy freight traffic and the steady pull of İstanbul ahead. This is the European side of the country, so our continental crossing had not happened yet. Shehzadi's old HGS tag was already back at work, proving that even adhesive can have a career in international travel.

Arnavutköy: Overnight Near İstanbul Havalimanı

We stopped in the airport-side Arnavutköy district at the Med Airport Hotel, close to İstanbul Havalimanı. This is not the historic Boğaziçi neighborhood with the same name. Same label, different place — because one İstanbul apparently was not enough administrative excitement.

Arnavutköy near İstanbul Havalimanı — Taşoluk Yeşil Camii above the district, followed by sunset over the airport-side roads and rooftops.

Airport and construction traffic kept the roads busy below. The overnight stop did exactly what we needed: it put us within easy reach of İstanbul without pretending the airport district was the old waterfront neighborhood.

İstanbul Again: A Deep Flashback to 2021 and Pamukkale

Returning to İstanbul pulled us straight back to our 2021 İstanbul journey. Back then we stayed near Beyazıt, used the tram around the old city, walked through Kapalıçarşı, and spent time at Topkapı Sarayı and Ayasofya. We had already cruised the Boğaziçi, but had not yet set foot on İstanbul's Asian side. So we took the Sirkeci–Harem ferry across and back, a wonderfully efficient way to change continents without even changing cities.

Çifte Kasırlar / Veliaht Dairesi inside Topkapı Sarayı, where richly tiled rooms brought our earlier İstanbul visit straight back into the present one.

This time the tiled rooms of Topkapı Sarayı were familiar rather than introductory. The photographed interior is in the Çifte Kasırlar / Veliaht Dairesi complex, where İznik tilework fills the walls with far more confidence than any modern wallpaper catalog could manage. Ayasofya also carried a prior memory; we had even made unusual map-style projections of its dome during that earlier visit. İstanbul did not need a new historical lecture from us. It already had four years of our own memories attached to it.

Flashback: İstanbul to Pamukkale, Hierapolis and Karahayıt

The 2021 journey then left İstanbul by air for Denizli Çardak. We picked up a Renault Captur at the airport and drove to Pamukkale, Hierapolis and Karahayıt. At Hierapolis we walked among the theater, necropolis and bath ruins. UNESCO dates the establishment of the thermal spa by the Attalid kings of Pergamon to the end of the second century BC, a tidier history than the older shorthand that simply pushed the city back into a vague Frig origin story.

Below the ruins, Pamukkale's white travertines required bare feet on the permitted walking areas. Warm mineral water ran across the terraces while the calcium-rich deposits did what geology does best: move at a pace that makes border control look frantic. We continued to Karahayıt Kırmızı Su, then returned the rental car at Denizli and flew back to İstanbul that evening. In 2021 we had joined those places by aircraft and a small crossover. Now we were back with a Tundra and considerably more road between the dots.

Boğaziçi to İzmit Körfezi: Europe to Asia by Bridge

The present trip finally made the continental move by road. Shehzadi crossed 15 Temmuz Şehitler Köprüsü over the Boğaziçi from European İstanbul into Asia. KGM records that the bridge opened in 1973 and provided the first uninterrupted road connection between Europe and Asia. We required neither a ferry schedule nor philosophical preparation. We mostly required the correct lane.

Dashboard view as Shehzadi crossed 15 Temmuz Şehitler Köprüsü over the Boğaziçi.

East of İstanbul, the route continued toward İzmit Körfezi and the O-5. Osmangazi Köprüsü connects Dilovası with Hersek Burnu across the gulf. KGM gives the bridge a 1,550-meter main span and says the crossing cuts a drive of roughly an hour and a half around the gulf to about six minutes. This is the sort of infrastructure statistic that becomes much more persuasive when Bursa is waiting on the other side.

Dashboard view as Shehzadi crossed Osmangazi Köprüsü over İzmit Körfezi toward Bursa.

Bursa: Koza Han, Ulu Cami and the Silk Trade

Bursa was our next major stop, an early Ottoman capital and a major silk and commercial center. We threaded Shehzadi through the old-city traffic and parked at Otoprakçı Hacı near Koza Han. A full-size American truck in old Bursa is not impossible. It merely asks everyone involved to become briefly interested in centimeters.

Watch: we took our full-size American truck into Bursa's old bazaar in Türkiye. Why did we do this? (YouTube)

Walking toward the han took us along Bursa's tram corridor, where an orange sign gave bicycle riders very specific advice about the rails. The warning is less poetic than most road wisdom and considerably more useful.

Bursa's tram rails come with unusually direct advice: “DEĞERLİ BİSİKLET KULLANICILARI RAYLARDAN UZAK DURUNUZ” — “Dear bicycle users, please stay away from the rails.” Steel grooves are wonderfully impartial about bicycle tires.

Koza Han: Silk That Never Really Left

Koza Han was commissioned by II. Bayezid in 1491. The two-story han still functions commercially, which makes it far more interesting than a building that survived only to become a polite shell. We entered through the stone gateway into a courtyard now busy with shops, cafés and tea tables.

Koza Han in Bursa — our arrival at the stone gateway, the working courtyard and the raised Koza Han Mescidi above its şadırvan.

Koza Han takes its name from koza, Turkish for cocoon, and its history is bound to Bursa's silk trade. The courtyard may now serve tea as readily as textiles, but the commercial thread never entirely left.

Inside Koza Han — vaulted arcades still lined with shops, including displays of silk scarves and textiles.

An archival display inside the han shows the older cocoon trade, with farmers bringing cocoons to market for weighing and sale. Bursa's silk history is quite capable of carrying itself.

A historical cocoon-trade photograph displayed inside Koza Han, recording the commodity that gave the han its name and much of Bursa's commercial identity.

Modern shop displays widen the merchandise beyond silk. We also found nazar boncuğu, the blue glass amulets commonly associated in Türkiye with protection against nazar. We bought none of the metaphysics, but the glasswork was hard to ignore.

Koza Han market details — decorative goods and blue nazar boncuğu, the familiar glass amulets associated with protection against nazar.

Outside the han, the surrounding bazaar shifted from textiles to food with almost no ceremony. It was the same practical commercial district, just with fewer scarves and a much stronger chance of lunch.

Bursa bazaar life beside Koza Han — produce and olive stalls followed by the neighborhood fish market.

Orhangazi Meydanı tied the district together, with Ulu Cami and the surrounding market streets all within an easy walk. It also gave us a pedestrian breather after threading a Tundra through Bursa's old streets, which was perhaps the square's least historically significant achievement but one we appreciated.

Around Koza Han and Orhangazi Meydanı — the #BURSA sign, the han's exterior and another arched entrance into the silk-market complex.

Nearby Ulu Cami was built for Yıldırım Bayezid around 1399–1400. Official records describe twenty domes carried on twelve massive piers. Local tradition connects the twenty domes with Bayezid's earlier intention to build twenty mosques after the victory at Nicopolis; we kept that as tradition rather than turning it into structural engineering by folklore.

Frig Vadisi: Çukurca, Midas Han and Volcanic Tuff

From Bursa we drove east toward Dağlık Frigya and based ourselves in Çukurca at Midas Han. It is a modern hotel, not an ancient han, despite having a name that could easily cause archaeological overconfidence after a long drive.

Midas Han in Çukurca, our lodging base for Dağlık Frigya.

Çukurca's roads and houses put Shehzadi into a much smaller village scale. One weathered house made a fine photograph. Its age and story were not obvious from the road, so we left the masonry to keep its secrets.

Shehzadi beside a weathered village house in Çukurca, Eskişehir.

Frig Vadisi is shaped by volcanic tuff, a rock soft enough to carve and soft enough for weather to keep editing. The formations made a visual comparison with Dimmuborgir in Iceland tempting, but only visually: the geology is not the same. Similar-looking rocks are perfectly capable of having unrelated family trees.

Frig Vadisi around Çukurca — weathered volcanic-tuff formations, a walking path among the rocks and a tall flowering Verbascum plant.

The Verbascum was striking enough to earn its own photograph: tall, yellow and very good at interrupting a field of weathered rock.

Gerdekkaya Mezar Anıtı and Yazılıkaya Midas Anıtı

Near Çukurca, Eskişehir cultural authorities date Gerdekkaya Mezar Anıtı broadly to the third through first centuries BC and describe it as Hellenistic, with Frig architectural traces and later Roman and Byzantine alterations. The monument therefore carries several layers of Anatolian history in one stubborn piece of rock.

Gerdekkaya Mezar Anıtı — Shehzadi below the Hellenistic rock-cut façade, its Doric-style exterior and the burial rooms carved inside.

Other rock-cut remains in the area, including Doğanlı Kale and Kırkgöz Kayalıkları, added to the sense that stone was the region's preferred filing cabinet. We continued south toward Yazılıkaya, also known for Midas Anıtı, where Frig religious architecture becomes dramatically larger and much harder to misplace.

Midas Anıtı at Yazılıkaya, the monumental Frig rock façade cut into the cliff.

Midas Anıtı is dated to the first half of the sixth century BC. The façade is about 17 meters high, covered with geometric patterns and inscriptions; the name “Midas” comes from one of those inscriptions. This was not King Midas's tomb. The monument is tied to Frig cult practice and the mother goddess Matar, later associated with Kibele. A large rock façade dedicated to a goddess is already interesting enough without lending it a dead king.

Leaving Yazılıkaya, we returned to Shehzadi and the D200/E90 for the run toward Ankara. The road opened across the plateau in long, easy sight lines. After the huge distances of Turkmenistan, this felt almost familiar — only with more traffic and fewer camels having opinions about our lane.

Eastbound on the D200/E90 toward Ankara, with the plateau opening ahead of Shehzadi.

Ankara: Suluhan and a Capital Chosen in 1923

We reached Ankara on the D200/E90 and aimed for Ulus. The last problem was the usual one: Shehzadi is excellent at crossing countries and less gifted at becoming small. Emektar Otopark solved that near Suluhan.

Shehzadi parked at Emektar Otopark near Ulus and Suluhan in Ankara.

Ankara became the capital of Türkiye by parliamentary decision on October 13, 1923. Sixteen days later, the Republic was proclaimed. The new capital sat in a city with a much older history beneath its republican role.

Suluhan

Suluhan, also known as Hasan Paşa Hanı, sits in the Ulus commercial district. Ankara municipal heritage material generally dates it to 1508–1511, while the surviving complex has seen later damage, repair and restoration. Today the han is still a market, with flowers, beads and celebration supplies taking the place of whatever cargo once came through its gate.

Suluhan in Ankara — the entrance into the restored han and its two-story courtyard around the Köşk Mescidi.

The courtyard is organized on two levels around the Köşk Mescidi. The stone arches provide the old framework; the shops provide the current reason to be there. We stuck to what the building itself showed us: two levels of arcades, a central mescit and a market still doing business.

Inside Suluhan — upper-level arcades, flower and celebration-supply stalls, and views across the working courtyard.

Suluhan looked less like a preserved relic and more like a working market that happened to have several centuries of masonry around it. The cargo changed. The commercial instinct did not need a museum label.

Ankara to Kapadokya: Ennar Cave House in Nevşehir

From Ankara we turned south and southeast on the O-21 and D300 toward Nevşehir. Ankara was not our overnight endpoint; Shehzadi kept rolling until Nar and Ennar Cave House, already within Kapadokya.

Ennar Cave House in Nar, Nevşehir, where Shehzadi finally stopped for the night.

The cave hotel made a fitting end to the chapter. After a day of roads, markets and rock-cut monuments, sleeping in a room built into the stone felt less like novelty and more like the route finishing its own joke. Shehzadi parked outside. We disappeared into stone.

By the time we parked at Ennar Cave House, Türkiye had stopped being a transit country and become the center of the route. The same expedition that had returned us through İstanbul was now carrying us from Ottoman silk markets into Frig rock-cut sanctuaries and the republican capital, then into Kapadokya. The old HGS tag on the windshield was the smallest piece of continuity; the larger one was that we were finally driving the places we had once reached by plane.

Part 2 begins exactly here. We wake at Ennar Cave House, continue to Uçhisar and a balloon flight, descend into Derinkuyu, visit Sultan Han and Saruhan for the Mevlevi Sema, then turn north through Aybastı Perşembe Yaylası and the Black Sea coast toward Sarpi and Batumi. Read Part 2 here.

Keep wandering,

- #VagabondCouple and Shehzadi