Incredible Cappadocia

After Istanbul, Cappadocia is by far Türkiye’s most popular tourist destination. Being in central Anatolia, though, far from the sea, neither of us had ever visited before. Guide books describe Cappadocia as “magical” and “fairy tale-like”, an otherworldly landscape of underground cities and cave dwellings built into fantastically colored canyons and whimsical rock formations.

Could the reality possibly live up to a build up like that? The short answer is yes!

Life on the Silk Road

Over the centuries, the Cappadocia region saw many empires come and go, from the Persians and Seljuks, to the Byzantines and Ottomans. Being on the Silk Road between Europe and the Far East, they also saw an endless stream of passing armies and traders. Being outmanned and outgunned, the residents instead figured out how to hide from every passing threat. They went underground.

People have been living in caves in this area since at least 900 BCE and thousands of cave dwellings still exist today. Beyond that, many entire underground cities have been discovered and more are still being found all the time.

We visited the Kaymakli Underground City, one of the largest to have been excavated. So far, 4 underground levels, with hundreds of rooms and tunnels have been found, but they estimate they’ve only uncovered a small portion of the site. With storage rooms, stables, sleeping rooms and even a winery, experts estimate that up to 3,000 people could have lived in this city for months at a time.

The Crazy Landscape

Our first adventure here was an ATV excursion into the hills and valleys around the central town of Göreme. Ann observed that the landscape reminded her a lot of the Zion/Bryce/Escalante area of Southern Utah. Researching it a bit further, I found that both regions are at precisely the same latitude and elevation. Coincidence? I think not.

Between sites with fanciful names like Imagination Valley, Sword Valley, Mushroom Valley and Rose Valley, a museum that was once a Byzantine monastery, and numerous enclaves of caves and lookout points, there is plenty to keep you engaged in Cappadocia for several days.

Then there’s the balloons…

Balloons, Balloons, Balloons

One of Cappadocia’s greatest claims to fame is to take a hot air balloon ride over all the beautiful scenery described above. In fact, there are 100 balloons licensed to operate in Cappadocia, and I’m pretty certain that all of them took flight on the morning we took our ride.

Petty grumbling over the 4:30 AM hotel pickup was soon forgotten as we passed dozens of balloons being prepared on the ground on the way to our own ship. Airborne soon after sunrise, we got an adventure of a lifetime, both in seeing the landscape below as well as the entire sky filled with colorful balloons.

After an hour of floating gently over the surrounding landscape, our balloon pilot showed us just how good these operators are by landing his craft on the waiting trailer below! Anyone who’s ever had a balloon ride before and watched the ground crews frantically scrambling just to end up in the same zip code as the balloon knows how impressive this feat was.

After the celebratory champagne toast following our flight, we were whisked back to our hotel and arrived in time for breakfast. The next day, we were treated to the same spectacle from below as the entire fleet of balloons passed directly over our hotel just after sunrise.