Cappadocia, Turkey
Hello! I’m Moriah, a friend of Sam and Liz, and I’ve been living in Turkey for the last year and a half learning Turkish and about Turkish culture. I’m excited to share about one of my favorite places that I’ve explored. In October, I had the chance to go to Cappadocia (pronounced Kapadokya) with my fiancé and a couple of friends. This city is one of the most interesting and beautiful places I’ve been to in Turkey, rich with ancient history and beautiful landscapes. If you’re planning a trip to Turkey, I would highly recommend making space to explore this city.
We flew out of Istanbul Ataturk Airport to Kayseri Erkilet Airport, and tickets were about $45 roundtrip. From the airport, we took a shuttle that was arranged by our hotel, and they dropped us off at our hotel door. We stayed in Göreme at Melek Cave Hotel which was super affordable (3 of us shared a room for $135 for 3 nights), and the staff was incredibly helpful and friendly. They provide traditional Turkish breakfast, and the manager was extremely knowledgable about the area and able to suggest things for us to do.
One of the biggest attractions of Cappadocia are the famous hot air balloons that lift off during sunrise. While a bit pricey, if you’re willing to spend the money, it’s a wonderful experience! We made our reservations with Butterfly Balloons, and they were great. If you want to ride the balloons, I would recommend making reservations for your first morning there, in case they have to reschedule because of weather. You have to get up pretty early, so prepare yourself, but the company picks you up at your hotel and takes you to their office to sign waivers. And they provide snacks, coffee, and tea while waiting! The ride lasts for about an hour, and during non coronavirus times, they have a breakfast after the landing. We thought it was a lovely and memorable experience, and we’re so glad we did it!
Later that day, we went to the open air museum, a UNESCO world heritage site, about a 15 minute walk from the Göreme city center which has many cave churches from the 10th-12th centuries. The entrance fee is 75 TL, and you can explore as long as you like. There are multiple churches dating back to the 4th century, and the artwork is incredibly preserved. The last church on the tour is the “Karanlik Kilisesi.” There’s an extra charge of 25 TL, but it’s definitely worth it! This has the most preserved artwork and was incredible to stand in. Across from the museum, there’s some really fun places to go hiking, so we did that for a big chunk of our day, just exploring the area and taking in the landscape.
The next day, our hotel helped us arrange a car rental (manuals are way more common than automatic, so make sure you know how to use one). The car rental was around $30 if you drove less than 500 km, and you were responsible for putting gas in it. They delivered the car to our hotel, and then the manager of the hotel returned it for us the following day.
After breakfast we drove about 45 minutes away to Derinkuyu, a huge underground city that was used as refuge during the 4th century. If you’re claustrophobic, I probably wouldn’t recommend going in, as the spaces are dark and tight, but it was really incredible! There’s a 50 TL entrance fee. Other than the underground city, there’s a couple spots to buy souvenirs in this area but not much else. There are buses that go there from Nevsehir, but we opted for the car so we could see some other spots.
After exploring Derinkuyu, we drove a bit farther away to Ihlara Valley to do some hiking and see more cave churches. The entrance fee here is 45 TL. We also hiked down to a little river to a little cafe, and we sat by the water and enjoyed gözleme (think quesadilla, but Turkish), fresh squeezed juice, and tea.
There’s an area close to the valley that claims to be one of the spots where some of Star Wars was filmed, which we gullibly believed. So we drove out there and decided to research it on the way only to find out, that it actually wasn’t filmed in Turkey at all. They tried to, but the Turkish government wouldn’t allow it. But there is a Turkish version of Star Wars that was filmed in this area. But we were able to explore some older cave homes and were chased by a flock of ducks and geese.
Our last half day there, we woke up early again to watch the sunrise, but this time from the ground and not from the balloon, and it was beautiful. You have to get up there pretty early to get a good spot to watch the balloons take flight, but it’s definitely worth it.
My fiancé and I decided to rent a motorbike to explore some of the valleys that were a bit farther away. We just rented it for a couple of hours, and we drove out to Pigeon Valley and Love Valley. If you have more than a couple of days in the city, there are several other valleys we wanted to go visit as well. After we returned it, we had lunch and did some souvenir shopping.
Food wise, there are many restaurants to choose from in Göreme, and if you’re wanting to stay on a budget, I’d stick with Turkish food. But we also tried out an Indian restaurant which was super tasty, but a bit more pricey.
You can get to a lot of the attractions by foot which is super helpful, and if we’d stayed longer, I probably would have rented a car for a couple more days to get to a few different places like Avanos or some of the other underground cities. We loved the history that was here and the many different unique rock formations and the experience of staying in a cave hotel. All in all we had a lovely trip, and I hope you can make it out to Cappadocia one day!
