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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This is an overpriced, badly maintained attraction. It is overrun with school kids running around and screaming at one another. Most of the buildings are closed so you can only see these from outside.
The walk there from the town is interesting and you see many fairy chimneys along the way. You could just do the walk and not bother…
we walked straight down from edge of uchitsar and wound up on a cliff side having to climb back over ridge to reach actual trail. The whole thing was SPECTACULAR though, better than the more frequented red and rose valley. Make sure you stop in for tea at the incredibly quirky tea garden halfway down the valley. The owner is…
We were originally going to skip this after having gone to the Goreme open air museum already but we had time on our way back to the airport and it turned out to be the most picturesque of the fairy chimney complexes.
Amazingly quiet in the late afternoon, explored for hours without seeing a soul. Eerie place like a scifi movie set in its strangeness.
After the initial curiosity, there are the same… the church caves are slightly more interesting…
Still worth a visit … but once is enough.
Our guide told us all goreme area is national park, I thing it should be national park because this landscape is amazing. Go up to one of the hill for sun set you could easily spend hours to watch the view of Goreme.
Good to have an area like this but felt overcrowded with all the tour buses there. Preferred the various valleys around to this.
Really a walking town area. Terrain was easy to walk and the sights to see are plentiful. Red Valley walk was great too..
We walked from our hotel it was great hike and stopped along a little tent/tea house along the way. We took an extended hike to Love Valley, the walk back from love valley was not so great as it was alongside the road, but glad we saw love valley.
When comparing the castle to others I have seen in Turkey, it is definitely unique. There are no displays or indepth information given but if you want to see a marvellous view over the region, this is the best place to do it from. Entrance was 5 lira.