6 Days Kilis & Gaziantep Tour: Old Town, Cooking Class, Hammam and Zeugma Museum Private Tour

You are welcomed at Gaziantep International Airport and driven south to Kilis in an air-conditioned vehicle. After check-in at the hotel that will be your base for the next five nights, the remainder of the day is free. Use it to recover from your journey, unpack properly and enjoy a calm first evening in this small border town near the Syrian frontier.

After breakfast your guide leads you into the city centre. Salih Efendi Street is the heart of old Kilis, and along it stand stone family houses and pavilions bearing names such as Neset Efendi, Safder Tumay and Zubeyda Ulgen Neci, which give a picture of traditional household life. You then visit Ravanda Castle, the fortress crowning the hill above the town, and the Ulu Mosque, among the earliest mosques of Kilis. Lunch is included. In the afternoon there is free time for shopping, as Kilis is a popular place for handicrafts and for brides preparing their wedding purchases, before you return to the hotel.

The morning is spent in the kitchen of a local restaurant, where the chef teaches a cooking class while your guide explains each stage. Recipes come from the Kilis tradition, which borrows from Turkish, Syrian and Lebanese cooking, and the menu also features salads and desserts. When the cooking is done, you sit down in the restaurant to eat the dishes you have prepared together as lunch. The afternoon is free after you return to the hotel, giving you time to stroll or relax.

After breakfast you set off for a traditional Turkish bath. Bathing culture of this kind goes back to the Roman world and was carried forward by the Seljuks and the Ottomans; many people in Turkey still visit the hammam regularly, and the experience fascinates travellers from around the globe. Once you have enjoyed this restorative ritual, you head back to your hotel in Kilis, with the rest of the day at leisure.

Following breakfast you are collected for the drive to Gaziantep. Your first visit is the Zeugma Mosaic Museum, whose remarkable mosaics date from the Roman period. Gaziantep is renowned for its markets and its cuisine, so the tour continues to the traditional Copper Bazaar and to Zincirli Bedesten, the historic covered market. Afterwards you stop for coffee at a traditional venue, which depends on the season: Tutun Han in summer and Tahmis Coffee House in winter. After the coffee break you return to Kilis for the night.

After your final breakfast, check out of the hotel and transfer back to Gaziantep International Airport for your flight home. The tour ends here, after six days that took you from the lanes and monuments of Kilis to its kitchens and hammam, and on to the museums and bazaars of Gaziantep.