Places Aika Wants to Go

This former Imperial summer home was the venue for a royal slap that once echoed 'round the world.

A fountain standing as a testament to a doomed alliance.

Over the centuries, this island paradise has done it all, from providing monks with ecclesiastical respite to sheltering an exiled Leon Trotsky.

The ornate miniature mansions were built for Istanbul's feathered residents.

This ancient village and its adjoining cemetery have a beautiful history of death and remembrance.

Monasteries on rock pillars, once accessible only by frayed ropes.

The most metal church of all time was built in record time because of an international, pious pissing contest.

A Turkish ghost town abandoned in a population exchange with Greece.

A Lycian city of the dead carved into the hillside of Southern Turkey, complete with startlingly human touches.

An abused and forgotten metropolis, abandoned for centuries.

These tombs were built into the side of a mountain so that ancient angels could reach the dead.

A marvel of Byzantine engineering under the streets of Istanbul.

A geological oddity topped with a 2,000-year-old pagan temple.

A minotaur, a labyrinth, and a dubious restoration pull in visitors from around the world.