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| In front of Red Valley, Goreme |
Notable sights of attraction/activities:
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| Zelve Open Air Museum |
If one visits Fairy Chimneys with ample amount of time, it is not required to spend more time on Love Valley, Rose Valley, Three Beauties, Devrent as the rock formations, terrain, landscape are more or less very similar to one another (we actually skipped these as we took our own sweet time to explore Fairy Chimneys). Cappadocia local tours & travel agencies operate 2 types of tours viz:
- Red Tour covering the northern locales of Cappadocia
- Green Tour traversing the southern Cappadocia
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| Fairy Chimneys |
It goes without saying that both the above tours CANNOT be done on the same day and many attractions are not included in the above tours. For example, either Kaymakli or Derinkuyu underground city tours are included in the Red Tour but not BOTH the underground cities. If the stay in Cappadocia is exceeding 3 days, then all the above attractions can be explored with ample time & energy without hurrying.
How to reach Cappadocia:
Cappadocia is fairly accessible from the big cities of Turkey by:
- flight (expensive but saves time)
- bus (cheapest but time consuming, takes about 9 hours)
- rental car (relatively costly but more time consuming & exhausting if self-driven)
The nearest relatively large town in Cappadocia is Kayseri. If traveling by bus, one can
- reach straight to Kayseri and then have to take another bus or car or taxi to reach Göreme, where the aforementioned tourist attractions are located.
- get down at Göreme Otobüs Terminali if that particular bus has a halt here.
If traveling by flight, there are following options available:
I personally will recommend to reach Nevsehir as it is approx. 13 km away from Goreme. It is advised to take a rental car or taxi from the airport itself as the Nevsehir Airport is located outside the main town of Nevsehir. It takes approx. half an hour to reach Goreme.
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| Standard taxi rates at Nevsehir Airport |
It's a must to book cave hotels in Goreme, one gets a first hand experience of living in the caves of Cappadocia. Our accommodation was at Garden Cave Hotel (AirBnB link , the Google Maps location published is incorrect) & I'll NEVER recommend this hotel as the service was lamentable. It had rained the previous night of our stay, so the approach road was totally muddy & mucky, I called the AirBnB host to help us bring our luggage uphill as our car could not ascend and got stuck in the muddy road but no one came for help. There is another approach road which the host didn't inform earlier and even that road is so narrow that it's quite perilous to drive a 4x4 or Jeep there. For me, it wasn't a road but a lane. Water was dripping onto our beds from the roof of our room, which even after complaint went unattended.
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| Turkish breakfast (many items weren't provided at the AirBnB) |
After quite a harrowing experience pulling our heavy luggages uphill to the hotel in the drizzle, we got fresh after a meagre unworthy Turkish breakfast and started our Cappadocia adventure from Zelve Open Air Museum.
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| Zelve II |
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Pigeon nest landscape - typical of Cappadocia |
The entry fee is 150 TL per person (April 2023) which includes entrance to the Fairy Chimneys as well. ZOAM (Zelve Open Air Museum) requires light to moderate hiking through the "moon-land", giving a sneak peak into the cave dwellers' accommodation. There are portions of ZOAM - Zelve I, Zelve II & Zelve III which are a bit far from the entry gate. The nice walking paths lead to the main churches through the Y-shaped valley and the visitors can explore various cave rooms & enjoy Cappadocia's jaw-dropping terrain which includes the enchanting caves lining the two ravines & picturesque conical structures - esrtwhile "homes" of the Byzantine dwellers.
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| Zelve II |
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| Zelve I |
It took approx 2-2.5 hours for us to complete Zelve I & II. But compared to Goreme Open Air Museum, the Selve churches are not well-preserved and one can explore the whole ZOAM all by oneself if you visit in the morning. Zelve was a Byzantine-era settlement; the oldest churches dating back to as early as 500's. Most of the Zelve churches date back to 9th - 10th centuries. ZOAM became an official open air museum & UNESCO World Heritage site in the 1960s.
We proceeded towards Fairy Chimneys/Paşabağları Müze ve Örenyeri and I was, of course, awestruck with the landscape. Being a geologist, my mind started to imagine what kinds of erosional activities took place at this particular locale to produce such marvelous natural architecture.
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| Walking through history |
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| Overlooking Fairy Chimneys |
Of course, the dominant agent of erosion here is wind, giving rise to differential erosional activities and creating a natural frameworks earning the name "Fairy Chimneys". The weather was pretty sunny & cool as you can see me wearing my denim jacket. We took around 1.5-2 hours to explore Fairy Chimneys.
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| Famous spot for shooting of movies, series |
Cappadocia is a popular location for many movies & series and all the more famous because of the hot air balloons. We were exhausted after extensive hiking in these 2 open air museums. For me, it was one year of exercise 😂
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| Fairy Chimneys |
On our way back to the AirBnB, we decided to enquire from various local tour operators the rates for hot air balloon rides and found Balloon Fy Agency (picture below) to be most affordable. We didn't get hot air balloon ride tickets for the next day as all slots were booked, instead we got the tickets for Day 3 before sunrise.
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| Local agency |
It cost us 210 Euros per person and had to be PAID in CASH - the local tour operators DON'T take card or online payments so ALWAYS remember to CARRY ENOUGH CASH - either Liras or Euros or US Dollars.We had a pretty lame & expensive "Chinese food" for lunch at a terribly average restaurant (Peking Chinese Restaurant). I couldn't even distinguish the "Chinese" flavours with my taste buds. The portion size was as if the dish was made for a 6-year old kid.
With irritated mood, we returned to our AirBnB to get some rest & get fresh. We had also decided that we'll explore the Goreme town in the evening and was longing for Indian food because of the terrible lunch that day. Finally we ate to our heart's content at India Gate Indian restaurant and roamed around for a bit at ~2deg C shivering even after wearing layers of warm clothes.
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| One of the good hotels of Goreme |
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| Overlooking typical Cappadocia landscape |
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