2 Days Amasya and Hattusha Tour from Ankara

Highlights of the 2 Days Amasya and Hattusha Tour from Ankara

This two-day private journey from Ankara threads together two very different chapters of Anatolian history: the Bronze-Age heartland of the Hittite Empire and the Ottoman-era river city of Amasya. Travelling in a comfortable private vehicle with a professional English-speaking guide, you leave the modern capital behind and drive into the rolling steppe of north-central Turkey, where some of the oldest and most evocative archaeological sites in the country wait far from the tourist crowds. It is an ideal escape for history lovers who want depth, context and genuine atmosphere rather than a checklist.

Your first day is devoted to the Hittites. At Hattusha (Hattusa), the UNESCO World Heritage capital of the Hittite Empire near Bogazkale, you walk among massive cyclopean walls, the Great Temple, the Lion Gate and the famous tunnel that pierces the city’s ramparts. Nearby lies Yazilikaya, an open-air rock sanctuary where processions of Hittite gods and the deities of the underworld are carved in relief across sheer limestone — one of the most important religious monuments of the ancient Near East. The region around Corum, including the early Hittite site of Alacahoyuk with its celebrated Sphinx Gate, completes this remarkable picture of a vanished empire.

The second day belongs to Amasya, the homeland of the ancient geographer Strabo, cradled in a narrow gorge of the Yesilirmak (Iris) river beneath towering cliffs. You gaze up at the monumental Rock Tombs of the Pontic Kings cut high into the rock face, stroll past the elegant Ottoman Yaliboyu riverside mansions, and visit the Sehzadeler (Ottoman Princes) Museum and the Amasya Archaeology Museum, with Amasya Castle watching over it all. With one night’s hotel accommodation, meals as listed and all transfers included, this tour delivers a rich, rounded portrait of central Anatolia’s layered past.