Cave hotels in Cappadocia: what to expect
For centuries people in Cappadocia lived in rooms cut into the soft volcanic rock, because it was quicker than building and the rock keeps an even temperature all year. Since the 1990s hundreds of those homes, monasteries and dovecotes have been restored as hotels, and spending two nights in one is part of our inland tours.
What a cave room is
A room carved into tuff, sometimes centuries old, sometimes extended recently with the same hand tools. Arched ceilings, niches in the walls where the original owners kept lamps and grain, a stone floor under the rugs. The temperature stays around 18-20 C whatever is happening outside, so there is rarely a need for air-conditioning in July or much heating in April. The walls are a metre thick and the rooms are completely silent.
What it is not
Dark or damp. The rooms have windows or glass doors onto a terrace, proper bathrooms (often with the shower hollowed into the rock), Wi-Fi, kettles and everything else a 4-star room has. The ceilings can be lower than you are used to and there are usually steps - cave hotels climb a hillside - so tell us when booking if stairs are a problem and we will allocate a ground-level room.
The terrace
The reason to be here. Most cave hotels are built up the slopes of Goreme, Uchisar or Urgup, and the breakfast terrace faces east over the valleys. At 06:00 the balloons rise directly in front of you. Guests who did not book a flight get almost the same photograph from their breakfast table.
Where we stay
Boutique cave hotels in and around Goreme and Urgup, the two towns at the centre of the sights. The exact hotel for your departure is confirmed with your booking and listed on your tour page under Hotels. All rooms are double, twin or triple; single rooms are available for a supplement.
Two nights, not one
One night in Cappadocia means arriving in the dark and leaving after the balloon flight, which is how most tours do it. We stay two, so that there is a full day for the Goreme Open Air Museum, Pasabag, Love Valley, Avanos and Uchisar between them - see Cappadocia: how the landscape was made and how the balloon flight works.
Cappadocia nights are on Fethiye to Istanbul, All Around Turkey, Antalya to Istanbul, Gulet Cruise & Cappadocia to Istanbul and All Around Turkey with Gulet Cruise.
