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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Göreme is a small town and nearly all valleys surrounded that small town. first Goreme than Urgup. I recommend you to stay in Goreme or in Urgup
Each of us walked away from the with a deeper understanding of the of the people and the skills in creating this underground…
We were lucky enough to have tea inside a house with the locals
Very small but great views of the area
I was part of a group and so we saw all the National Park
Interesting and amazing
It was a fantastic few hours to enjoy how other people live
An incredible experience. We were amazed at the frescoes – so many centuries old but still there. The caves are impressive. The history amazing.
I would recommend stopping in Selime and exploring the hillside. Be careful not to purchase a ticket to the Cathedral on arrival – there is no fee to explore the site, only to do the trek to the Cathedral which we were told would take a couple of hours.
Whilst walking around you must see St Basil's Chapel, the Apple Church and the Snake Church, all with amazing paintings on the walls. You must pay the extra 8 TL and see the Dark Church. It without doubt has the best preserved frescoes in Capadoccia thanks to the fact such little light got into it ( hence it's known as…
really cool open air collection of caves and cave churches but wear a hat as it gets HOT, also try to go early as it can get very crowded
Walked Love Vallely and Pigeon Valley recently in a clockwise direction from Göreme. If it had not been for our hostel manager's advice before setting out we would have had no idea where to walk at all. There is just NO signage in the direction we walked. To add to this, there are multiple unsigned forks in the track where…
It was really hot when we went so we didn't feel like going into all the cave/rooms. It's interesting, but come early when the sun's not so bad. We also walked to there so that might have contributed to our tiredness. You can't take pics in most of the rooms and if you don't use a guide or the earphone…
Some of the reviews here sound like people didn't bother to do much walking. If you walk all the way from Goreme to Uchisar via the valley, it's a fantastic, scenic, enchanting walk of about 4km one way. The 'castle' at Uchisar gives amazing views of the landscape you've just walked through and puts it all into perspective.