Cappadocia

When planning our trip to Turkey one of the main locations we wanted to visit was Cappadocia. There are famous Instagram photos of hot air balloons flying over a valley and both Ciara and myself were interested in seeing it in person. We were collected at 3:45 and brought to a local office for payment and to be organised into groups for the balloon. Each balloon can carry twenty people. The balloon's basket has compartments to separate people and to help distribute weight. Once we got in the basket, the pilot explained the safety position to take when landing and then we were off. We floated up into the air and watched as about eighty other hot air balloons flew around us. We flew over the valley, sometimes going high and other times flying low near the ground. The pilot rotated the basket slowly so we could get a beautiful panoramic view. The whole experience lasted about one hour. Ciara and myself were in awe for the whole time and we couldn't believe how pretty it was to see all the hot air balloons. We started at dawn and saw the sun rise over the valley. It was beautiful to watch the sunlight change over the valley. We were definitely surprised by how much we enjoyed the experience and our photos make great Instagram posts.

After breakfast we were collected for a bus trip of Cappadocia region. We first visited a viewpoint over Goreme village which has big fairy towers. Our guide George explained how these fairy towers were developed as a result of volcano formations and eroded due to wind. Next we visited the underground living quarters developed by Christians who came from Jerusalem to spread Christianity between the 3rd and 7th Century. There was approximately one thousand people living in the underground villages and they were hiding from Pagan Romans. There is over two thousand underground villages in the region. We visited Selime Cathedral which is a caved church and it was built in the 11th Century. We learned that there are approximately one thousand caved churches in Cappadocia.

After lunch we walked to Saint George's Church which was built in the 13th century. It was a nice river walk to the church and the church had some nice wall paintings. Finally we stopped at the Pigeon Valley Viewpoint before being dropped back at our hotel. We treated ourselves to a three course Asian meal in Quick China. It was so good that we returned the next evening for dinner again. Special mention was the chocolate fever desert, words can't describe how delicious it was!

The following morning we got up at sunrise to watch the hot air balloons from the roof of our hotel. We spent an hour fascinated by the balloons floating up in the sky. After two early mornings we were glad to chill and have siestas for the afternoon. At 5pm we were collected for our quad biking tour. We were in a group of eight and drove to different valleys for a view of the scenery. We drove through tunnels and on sandy bumpy roads. We drove up and down tall banks. It was a fun experience and something different to do. Overall Cappadocia may be a touristy town but the hot air balloon experience was well worth our visit.Read more