Turkish Delight - Part II - Göreme and Cappadocia

After two nights in Selçuk we woke up at 4:30am for a second time (the first being our Doha-Istanbul flight) and flew from Izmir to Kayseri, then shuttling to Göreme in the heart of Cappadocia.  Cappadocia's main tourist attraction is the landscape, created through solidified volcanic ash that has eroded and formed distinctive formations called "fairy chimneys" which are often elongated or mushroom shaped (description compiled from DK Eyewitness Travel's Turkey).  Carved into the soft rock are hundreds of dwellings and churches, everywhere you look and sometimes where you least expect them. 

We started with a visit to the Göreme Open Air Museum, a monastic complex of churches, rectories and dwellings all carved into a beauti ful landscape.  Even though we found ourselves behind quite a few tour groups (in very compact spaces), the churches were really a neat surprise to see.  Hidden away were these beautifully vibrant frescoes.  Very cool. 

One of the main reasons for visiting Cappadocia is to hot air balloon over the crazy landscape, and our flight with Royal Balloon did not disappoint. The day started with a 4:30am pickup (that's right, our third 4:30am wake-up on this trip).  Kev bullied me into the 1.5 hr. flight vs. the 1 hr. flight (because how often do you get to do this?) and as such our balloon took off a little bit further out from the pack.  And when I mean pack, I mean the 50+ other balloons taking off.  We watched the balloon inflate and then hopped into the basket with our 8 new friends.  We learned a little bit about ballooning from our Aussie pilot David, such as you can't control where you go (only the wind can) and the pilot can only really control up/down and spinning.  We first went through Love Valley (named for the phallic fairy chimneys), floated through Rose Valley and landed somehow in the middle of a lovely field full of wildflowers.  The experience was remarkably smooth and gentle, with only the loud occasional gas bursts to remind you that you're in a hot air balloon.  Having taken off away from the pack we got some great picks of the balloons against the landscape.  The whole experience was a real treat.

Here's a quick little video from our flight...

I knew Kev would love Göreme for the hiking.  It's a cool experience to float over the landscape, but it's also neat to see things from within the canyon.  We did virtually every hike there was in the area, including the canyons closest to the Open Air Museum as well as Love, Red and Rose Valleys.  On our final day we thought we'd wake up early for a hike near the balloon lift-off point so that we could watch all the balloons overhead.  Fail!  We must have not planned our timing well, as we were woken by roosters and the gas burst sounds of the few remaining hot air balloons still out at 7:30am.  Some of the hikes were relatively flat and some required a little gut check (on my part), but overall they were nicely challenging and soooo scenic.  Tons of little cave houses, pigeon coops (we'll see if the hundreds of pigeon coop photos make Facebook), fairy chimneys, churches and VIEWS.  I was blown away by the meadows.  It sounds pretty cheesy, but never in my life have I seen such meadows just full of wildflowers of every color.  Unbelievable and just majestic.  We could have easily spent another day here.

One of the restaurants we tried had posted this great quote...
In the end it's not going to matter how many breaths you took but how many moments took your breath away.

On a day where I'd had enough sun and needed to rest my feet, we took a bus to Kaymaklı to visit the underground city.  Thousands of people lived in this underground city in the 6th-9th centuries.  As you descend deep into the city (there are eight levels) you see a true civilization... living space for kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms, churches, food storage, wineries, etc.  We were on the fence about trekking out of town for this one (about an hour and 2 dolmuşes) but I'm glad we went.  It was quite a neat experience.

We stayed at Caravanserai Cave Hotel.  Having previous stayed in cave rooms before, I had booked a non-cave room.  Something was screwed up with the reservation and we did end up in a cave for one of the nights, but I like to think of the experience like this... even thought I didn't want to stay in a cave, anyone familiar with Cappadocia will be asking if we stayed in a cave and at least now we can say yes!

We have a restaurant here to recommend... Sedef Restaurant was so great we ate there twice.  Lovely outdoor terrace, delicious kebap, impressive bread and tasty meze.  We tried imam bayıldı (eggplant halved and stuffed with onion, tomato, garlic), antep ezme (spicy paste of tomato, red pepper, onion), patlıcan ezme (baba ganoush) and taratur (strained yogurt w/ garlic, mint).

From Göreme to Istanbul!