Cappadocia: how the landscape was made and where to see it
Cappadocia is a high plateau in the centre of Anatolia where three volcanoes - Erciyes, Hasan and Gullu - buried the land under ash millions of years ago. The ash compacted into tuff, a rock soft enough to carve with a spoon, and wind and water have spent the time since sculpting it into the valleys, cones and spires that make the region look like nowhere else. People then did the rest: hollowing homes, churches, dovecotes and entire cities out of the rock.
The fairy chimneys
Where a cap of harder basalt sat on the tuff, the soft rock below eroded more slowly and left a pillar with a hat. The best stands are at Pasabag (Monks Valley), where hermits carved cells into the chimneys, and in Love Valley near Goreme, whose shapes need no explanation.
The cave churches
Between the 9th and 12th centuries Byzantine monks cut hundreds of churches into the rock and painted them. The Goreme Open Air Museum is the densest group - a dozen churches in one small valley, several with frescoes still bright because the dark kept the colours. The Dark Church (small extra ticket) is the best preserved.
The underground cities
Derinkuyu goes eight levels and 60 metres down: stables, kitchens, chapels, wells, ventilation shafts and round stone doors that rolled across the passages from inside. Thousands of people could shelter here for months. It is the one place in Cappadocia where you may want to think twice if you are claustrophobic.
The villages
Goreme, in the middle of the valleys and where the balloons launch; Uchisar, with its castle-rock and the best view of the whole region; Urgup, the larger town with the wine cellars; Avanos on the Red River, where the pottery workshops still throw the local clay; Cavusin with its abandoned cliff village. Our two nights are in a cave hotel in or around Goreme and Urgup - see what to expect from a cave hotel.
What the tour covers
Day one is the drive in from Pamukkale with the optional Turkish night on arrival. Day two is the full guided day: the optional sunrise balloon flight, the Goreme Open Air Museum, Pasabag, Love Valley, Avanos and Uchisar Castle. Day three begins with Derinkuyu before the drive to the Salt Lake and Istanbul.
Cappadocia is on the Fethiye to Istanbul Tour, the All Around Turkey Tour, Antalya to Istanbul, Gulet Cruise & Cappadocia to Istanbul and All Around Turkey with Gulet Cruise.
