We spent less than 36 hours in a region of Turkey referred to as
Cappadocia, located in central Anatolia. Cappadocia is most well-known for its unusual rock formations, known as fairy chimneys, surrounding Goreme and other Cappadocian cities. In ancient times, people lived and prayed in cave dwellings and monasteries built inside these astounding fairy chimneys, and evidence of this still exists today.
Our 36 hours in Goreme was absolutely amazing and pretty much a fairytale. We stayed in a "cave hotel" while we were there -- by the way, this was not actually a cave, just a building with rented rooms adjacent to the fairy chimneys. Because we had so little time in Goreme, we set our minds to doing as much as possible before we flew back to Istanbul.
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| The view right outside our hotel room. |
Our first morning, we woke up at 4:00 AM for a truly unforgettably beautiful sunrise hot air balloon ride. Here are some of our favorite pictures and videos:
Video 1,
Video 2.
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| A view of downtown Goreme, close to where we stayed. |
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| Turkey! |
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To celebrate, the organizers served us
cherry juice with a tiny bit of champagne. |
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| Yay, we did it! |
After a quick nap, we continued on with a lovely day tour to various places in Cappadocia. Places of note include a gorgeous panoramic view halfway between Uchisar and Goreme, the ancient
Derinkuyu underground caves (an entire city!), the
Selime Monastery, and parts of
Ihlara Valley.
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| Inside the Derinkuyu caves. |
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| Excited to be inside a cave! |
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| Selime Monastery. |
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| Selime Monastery. |
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We went inside a few of the churches in the monastery.
There's not much left, but you can see some of the vegetable-based
paint used. Pigeon poop was used as a primer. |
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Inside one of the Selime Cathedrals. There are very few
of these churches where the paint is this well-preserved. |
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| The view from Selime Monastery. |
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| The view from Selime Monastery. |
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| We're excited to be visiting Selime! |
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| Cool rock formation in Selime. |
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| The view from Selime! |
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| The view of Selime! |
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| A map of Ihlara Valley. |
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| Picturesque views of the Ihlara Valley area. We hiked through part of the valley while in Cappadocia. |
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| Ihlara Valley area. |
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| Ihlara Valley area. |
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Ancient monasteries could be seen throughout Ihlara Valley. The larger openings are entrances to the monastery, but
the smaller openings are actually pigeon holes. Pigeon carried important messages between people living in the area. |
That evening, we went on a breathtaking hike into Rose Valley to watch the sunset. What a lovely way to spend the evening, don't you think?
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| A phenomenal sunset in Rose Valley. |
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Can you see the clearly defined
colors layered along the rock? |
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| A cool view point on our sunset hike. |
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| Another cool view point on our sunset hike. |
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| We saw these flowers everywhere! |
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| Joe studied this flower in college (silene alba, or latifolia alba). |
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| Um. We couldn't leave Cappadocia without doing this. Yay, bellies! |
We ended our day with a lavish dinner at a family-owned restaurant in downtown Goreme, where we enjoyed a bowl of
manti (Turkish ravioli stuffed with minced beef, served with tomato sauce and yogurt) and
testi kebab (meat cooked in a clay pot in a tandoor oven). The clay pot is actually sealed during cooking time and the top is broken off just before serving.
Here is a video of our server doing this for us.
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| We splurged and got some Turkish beer and Cappadocian wine. |
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| Amazing salad with dried fruit, pomegranate, and fresh walnuts. |
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| Turkish manti. |
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| Testi kebab. |
Sadly, we had to leave the next morning, but not before we got to walk through downtown Goreme and the amazing open air museum featuring carefully preserved monasteries and graves (see pictures below)! Cappadocia, we miss you already!
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Seen inside one of the many monasteries
at the Goreme Open Air Museum. |
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Seen inside one of the many monasteries
at the Goreme Open Air Museum. |
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Seen inside one of the many monasteries
at the Goreme Open Air Museum. |
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| Outside one of the many churches. See the tiny pigeon holes? |
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| Just one more picture of the incredible view of the surrounding rock formations. |
