Easter and Cappodicia

Balloons over Cappodocia. All photos in this post are my own.
As it is the Easter Weekend, I think it is a good time to describe the unique travel experience of the cave churches in Cappodocia. Cappodocia is a region in the central part of Turkey and is a very unique area. It is in Central Anatolia. Ancient volcanic eruptions have left a very thick layer of volcanic ash (ignimbrite). This has, over hundreds of years, turned into rocks, but a very soft rocks. The natural weathering of this soft stone has left the most amazing stone structures, often in the shape of mushrooms. In fact the landscape is so strange that it could have been used as a set in one of the Star Wars movies as a strange planet! It is that strange.


Strange shaped rock formations
 To get there, you would need to first fly to Istanbul. Istanbul is another really great travel destination and would be worth a few posts on this blog. From Istanbul you would then need to fly to the city of  Kayseri. This is about an hour and half drive from Cappodicia. As this is one of the main tourist attractions in Turkey, there are numerous shuttle services between Kayseri and the towns in Cappodicia. There are around 3 million tourists which visit Cappodocia each year. There are a few towns in the region but the best one to stay at is Goreme.

The natural weathering process has eroded the rocks around Goreme into hundreds of amazing pillars. People of the region carved out houses, churches and monasteries into the soft rock. The area is covered with caves which people used to live in. People are no longer allowed to live in these caves. The main villages in the area are Urgup, Avanos, Uchhisar, Nevseshir and of course Goreme. All of these villages have amazing cave hotels.
Painting is a cave church in Cappodocia

There are also the underground cities at Derinkuyu, Kaymakli and Ozkonak. These are amazing massive underground cities which is worth another post. There is also the Ihlara Valley, which is a really beautify Vally and also has quite a few caves which have a history of being used as Churches which beautiful paintings.

In the bible times, one of the first places which the disciples of Jesus travelled to was Cappodocia. The problem was that there was a language difference. So in order to tell the story of Jesus, they painted the main Bible stories onto the walls of these cave churches. Some if these have been very well preserved, like at the monastery complex at Goreme in the dark church. There are literally hunders, if not thousands of caves in this area and if you wonder into caves in the area, there is often less well persevered bible story painting in the caves.
Hot air balloons at sunrise

Exploring the caves of Cappodocia
Of course one of the best ways to see this strange and unique landscape is from a hot air balloon. There are many hot air balloons which take off in the morning. Unfortunately, I have not done this yet. On one of the work related trips to the area, I was going to do a balloon ride, but on the day of my ride, the weather conditions were not ideal, so the balloon did not take off. I flew out of the region the next day, so I missed my chance at a hot air balloon ride. Oh well, I guess you always need something to go back to.

Another highlight of the area is to stay in a cave hotel. There are many of these cave hotels in the region and this is a great experience. Everything is carves out of the rock. Your bed is rock - yes there is a nice mattress on the bed, but the mattress is on a rock base. The dressing table is carved out of rock. There are many of these cave hotels in the region and can be booked at www.booking.com (I do most of my hotel booking through booking.com).
Our room was the two wholes in the rock in the middle of the photo!

This is a dream travel destination and if you have not been there, it should be on your bucket list.

Cave homes

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