The Turkish region of Cappadocia, a region of exceptional natural wonders, in particular characterized by fairy chimneys and a unique historical and cultural heritage, boasts one of the most dramatic sights in the world.
Visiting Cappadocia is such a change from visiting many other busy bustling sights all over Turkey. It is a great pleasure to wander in the vast open space filled with captivating natural attractions which have seen human history dated back in the Bronze Age.
While in Goreme Open Air Museum , the conical formations resulting from the volcanic eruptions that took place millions of years ago, just follow the path up to the top of one of the ridges where a spectacular view of the fairy chimneys awaits you. The natural cone formations contain caves and labyrinths. As early as the third century, those chimneys became a hiding place for early Christians who fled persecution from the Romans, and then later from raiding Muslims. In modern tourism, many caves have been turned into cave houses for tourist stays and the lunar-like setting of Goreme Valley has become popular for hot-air ballooning.
Many say the extremely unique landscape of Cappadocia resembles some scene in a Star Wars movie and yet you may be surprised to discover that no major commercial movies have been filmed there. It would be a perfect setting for movies such as Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter series.
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The Goreme National Park is one of the great wonders of the world! I have never seen such a magical blending…
Derinkuyu has seven floors and 85 meters depth and can shelters thousands. It has extensive defence netwroks of traps. It is difficult to walk or drive around the Cappadocia.
I am a big fan of hiking and did the Rose Valley for almost 3 hours, all the way from South to North, starting from a small parking lot very convenience placed. The place is just out of sight, mainly because there are so many caves to explore as well as churches. They are all open so you just have…
Our kids (5 and 8) loved Cappadocia. In Pasabag we ran around and explored. My husband climbed up to the plain above and said it looked like an inviting place to hike, but time didn't allow for that. Well worth the stop.
At one time up to 20,000 people lived in Derinkuyu Underground City carved 18 storeys deep into the Cappadocia earth. Today, 8 floors of rooms, tunnels and passageways are open for public viewing
The town of Uchisar is visible from the roadway below and looks like a Steven Spielberg movie set, but the walk up through the "castle" doesn't pay off with views much better than you can get from virtually anywhere else. There are no furnishings to see…just more rock.
I wish I could have spent more time in the Goreme Open Air Museum. There were so many visitors even though we arrived at noon so the crowd made us to queue up a lot and wait sometimes for more than five minutes to walk into the caves and churches, what annoyed me a bit. The place is fantastic though,…
We intended to hike the entire valley, from Goreme to Uchysar, however the weather wasn't great (some mist and very cold), so we had to stop and go back on the half way. The place is magical, primarily where the valley narrows.
So fun to walk through the cave, we did do some adventuring off the beaten path (meaning in the dark caves) which we were later told was dangerous but we were fine with a iPhone flashlight app.
Walked from Uchisar to Goreme thru beautiful Pigeon Valley and kept an eye out for Hasan's tea house as suggested by others. Well it was right in the middle of the trail so impossible to miss and what an experience