I feel activities in Cappadocia are very early morning based - getting on a hot air balloon or viewing hot air balloons. I landed in Kayseri Airport at 2ish am, my call time for hot air ballon was at 5:20am and I also woke up on my 3rd day at around 6am to view hot air balloons.
Call time for hot air balloons varies depending on sunrise. My pick up time was at 5:20am. After being picked up from the hotel, I was brought to the front of their shop to wait for fly/no fly decision. In the meantime, we were given a breakfast pack. Breakfast pack included a tetrapack drink, a water bottle, a bun and a couple of snacks like nuts and pretzels.
When they got the decision, the driver brought us to the hot air balloon starting point.
As mentioned previously, I booked this via the hotel. The hot air balloon company I was with was Air Kapadokya. It was a classic sunrise flight of maximum 24 people. In my compartment was a solo male traveller, a couple, 2 friends from Korea and me. There were 4 compartments in total. Our flight went on for a total of 1 hour 5 minutes. We pretty much have to climb into the basket, it wasn't hard and there were many people there who would give you a hand if you need help. I was second closest to the burner. The pilot gave us a briefing on landing position of crouching down facing inside of the basket before the balloon took off.
It was slow so it wasn't scary to me. Plus I'm short so the probability of me falling off the basket is small. My fear is more of quick moving in the air thing like roller coater rides or any free drop rides for the matter. I guess I dont have fear of heights but more fear of falling.
Flight started off before sunrise, the pilot brought us low to the valley and passed Devrent Valley (or also known as Imaginary Valley) which I didn't get to the day before.
We waited for sunrise on the hot air balloon. Thankful for a good weather day for being able to fit in a hot air balloon ride. I wanted to do hot air balloon in Cappadocia even though I well aware that many other places also offer hot air balloon rides.
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| Featuring background of Uçhisar Castle that I also didn't go |
There were a lot of coordination work to land the hot air balloon. I could see a truck 'chasing' our hot air balloon as the pilot were looking for a place to land. On descending, the balloon basket hit some branches and the pilot very casually said, "No problem" and proceeded to pull out the branch that was stuck at the basket. We landed successfully and the ground staffs coordinated our climbing out of the basket. We had a round of champagne drink and were handed our 'flight certificate' before the driver sent us back to our respective hotels.
I had breakfast again in the hotel and waited for my green tour pick up at about 9:30 am. I decided to do the Green Tour as the places covered in this tour were further away.
Yeşil Tur / Green Tour
I paid TL 815 for this tour which included lunch and paid in cash directly to the tour company. I was picked up at about 9:30 am and brought to their office for payment before our first tour stop. The tour ended around 6ish pm and covered Göreme Panorama, Derinkuyu Underground City, Selime Cathedral, Ihlara Canyon, Pigeon Valley and Onyx Art Factory.
Göreme Panorama
We were brought to a viewpoint to see Göreme while the guide briefed us some information around Cappadocia and Göreme.
Derinkuyu Underground City
Derinkuyu Underground City is the biggest and deepest underground city in Cappadocia and visitors can descent down seven levels and could look up the ventilation shaft to see how far down one is. Many sections are open for visits including stalls, storages, church, kitchen and other sections. It was underground and a stop for many tour groups making this place fairly crowded. We were behind this Korean speaking tour group and continued to see them along our tour! I could even recognise the Korean speaking tour guide because we bumped into them so often and of course all the tour guides are friends.
Selime Cathedral
Selime Cathedral is the largest and most elaborate rock-cut complex in Cappadocia. This religious structure was believed to be built in the 900s and covers an enormous kitchen, halls, church and courtyards.
Ihlara Valley
Ihlara Canyon is about 14 km and contains more than 100 churches and approximately 10,000 caves which were carved by early Christian monks. It is hemmed in by jagged cliffs and follows the Melendiz River.
The photo above was taken outside Selime Cathedral but we didn't walk the whole length. The tour I went with took a lunch break after visiting Selime Cathedral before walking a short stretch of Ihlara Canyon. We passed a pistachio tree and visited the Ağaçaltı Church.
Ağaçaltı Church features beautiful, vibrant pictures with an towering central dome. This cave church at the base of Ihlara's main entrance was built around 800AD.
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| Pistachio tree |
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| Ihlara Valley |
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| Central dome of Ağaçaltı Church |
I was walking next to the tour guide when we were at Ihlara Valley and found out that the owner of dondurma place near where I stayed was a tour guide in Türkiye and they are friends. What a small world! The tour guide caught me sleeping in the bus, probably that was why he was chatting with me to keep me awake. We also saw the same Korean speaking tour group here!
We had another break when we got to this resting place, which I think is where it marked as Belisırma.
Güvercinlik Vadisi / Pigeon Valley
It was drizzling when we got back to Uçhisar area so the tour guide suggested that we visit the Onyx Art Factory first. I walked one round and waited outside, luckily rain has stopped then. The pigeon valley viewpoint we were going were just at the opposite. There was also an evil eye tree there.
Güvercinlik Vadisi runs between Göreme and Uçhisar. It is named after the many pigeon houses which were carved into the soft rock of the adjacent hills.
And that was the last stop with Green Tour.
Side note: Melbourne and it's extreme pollen day :|